Uit verre streken Guus Röell & Dickie Zebregs GUUS RÖELL & DICKIE ZEBREGS Uit verre streken from distant shores

Colonial Art and Antiques, Exotica, Natural History and Scientific Taxidermy. The Age of European Exploration, 17th - 19th century

Amsterdam & Maastricht, December 2020 s

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m A e th d an Europe 1 A rare and fine terrestrial table-globe by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750) Nuremberg, 1728

GLOBUS TERRESTRIS in quo locorum situs terraeque facies, secundum praecipuas celeberrimorum nostri oevi Astronomorum et Geographorum observationes opera IOH. GABR. DOPPELMAIERI Mathem. Prof. Publ. Norib. Exhibentur, concinnatus á Ioh. George. Puschnero Chalcographo Norib. A.C. 1728

Diam. 31.7 cm

The globe is made up of twelve engraved and finely hand- coloured gores laid onto a hollow paper-mâché and plaster sphere, the equatorial and meridian of Ferro graduated in individual degrees and labelled every 5°, the Polar and Tropic circles graduated in degrees but not labelled, the ecliptic graduated in individual days of the houses of the Zodiac with names and sigils and labelled every ten days. In the Southern Pacific a second cartouche surrounded by portraits of the various famous explorers. The tracks of several explorers are also shown. Many more interesting details and descriptions can be found on this globe. A stamped brass hour dial and pointer sits on top of the engraved brass meridian circle graduated in four quadrants, fitted in a darkened oak Dutch- style stand. The octagonal horizon with beautifully hand-coloured engraved paper showing degrees of amplitude and azimuth in four quadrants, days of the month with Saint’s Days and days of the Zodiac and wind directions. On the circular base of the stand is fitted a compass with a sundial. science, in particular in the work of scientists like Newton, Huygens and Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr was a prolific globe-maker in early eighteenth- Descartes. He translated several works on astronomy and cartography, such century Nuremberg, as well as a distinguished mathematician, translator, as Nicolas Bion’s L’usage des globes célestes et terrestres, et des sphères and writer, editor and teacher. He studied in Altdorf and Halle, and travelled Astronomy by Thomas Street, as well as producing scientific works of his widely in Germany, England and the Netherlands. In 1704 he became own, including his Atlas novus coelestia in 1742. Besides, his work involved professor of Mathematics at the Aegidien Gymnasium in Nuremberg. Globe- carrying out various astronomical and meteorological observations and making was only a small part of his general efforts to encourage interest in experiments with electrical phenomena. Indeed, it seems likely that his death in 1750 was the result of an electric shock received while experimenting with 2 the newly invented electrical condensers. Reinier Nooms, called ‘Zeeman’ (1623/4-1667) It may have been an association with the cartographer Johann Baptist View of the Amsterdam Harbour with the West-Indian Warehouse and the Homann (1664-1724) which awakened in Doppelmayr an interest in Pepper Wharf on the Rapenburg Island, circa 1654 globes, originating with his contribution of an article entitled Einleitung zur Geographie for Homann’s atlas of 1714. The present terrestrial globe, Signed R. Zeeman on the flag lower centre dated 1728, is one of the very first, extremely impressive globes, made by Doppelmayr, both in design and in execution. Stevenson records that there Oil on canvas, 37.3 x 51.2 cm “are scarcely any map records of the period more interesting than those found on this globe of Doppelmayr’s.” Following the decline of Dutch globe-making Provenance: at the beginning of the 18th century, Doppelmayr was the first successful - Anonymous sale, Van Eyck Leiden, 1 June 1765, lot 122, as een dito globe-maker in Germany and soon dominated the German market for cheap [Admiraliteitswerf te Amsterdam] met zynde een Gezigt van het Y, 15 x 19.5 duim but finely drawn and constructed globes. [39.2 x 50.2 cm] (sold together with lot 121 for fl. 33,- to Bach) - Acquired before 1920 by Jan Hendrik Cornelis Salberg (1877-1942), Hilversum, For further reading: www.zebregsroell.com/doppelmayr-globe bequeathed to his wife Mrs. S.J.M. Salberg-Feijen (1896-1988), thence by descent

The present picture is the only surviving 17th century painting in which the West-Indian Warehouse is depicted where the earliest government of New Amsterdam/New York was based and from where Johan Maurits was sent off to the New World. It offers a view of the island Rapenburg, from left to right first the old WIC warehouse, then the Pepper Wharf with two careened ships. Most prominently visible is the West-Indian Warehouse of 1642, where the Lords XIX had their administrative centre and from where they ruled the new colony New-Amsterdam. Twice a week, applicants were able to register here for settlement in Manhattan, claiming grants and free land. The interest however remained small. The Montelbaanstoren sticks out from behind the warehouse, while the flute ship ‘De Liefde’ (Love) is moored in front of it, which also appears in an etching by the artist. Nooms was the sole marine artist in the inventory of the famed Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. The painter signed his work simply with the word ‘Zeeman’ (Sailor) and it was in this function that he accompanied De Ruyter on his journey to the Mediterranean, which took place from 1661 to 1663. Little is known of his life, other than that he was a maritime painter, best known for his drawings and etchings of all Dutch 17th century ship-types and his reliable and down-to-earth representation of the maritime practice (for a painting by ‘Zeeman’ of Dutch ships off a Mediterranean coast see: Uit Verre Streken, March 2018, no. 3). Presumably he started painting and drawing in his later years, after a life as sailor. How he acquired his skills as an artist is not known, but his knowledge of ships is evident from his work.

For further reading: www.zebregsroell.com/wic-warehouse

3 Jan de Baen (1633-1702) Portrait of Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, the ‘Brazilian’

Grey chalk, heightened in white, brown ink frame, on blue paper 380 x 291 mm

Verso a Portrait of a seated Scholar, annotated in graphite by a later hand C. Hughens and in brown ink Bart van der Elst

This newly discovered drawing, the verso of which is first mentioned in a catalogue of 1817, is directly related to the famous portrait by De Baen. Rather than being a preparatory drawing, it probably served as a studio example for the production of painted copies. One of the most respected and searched after portraitists of his lifetime, Jan de Baen’s fame ran parallel to the apex and decline of the Dutch Republic. The turmoil of the rampjaar (the disaster year of 1672) did not come without effects for the artist. His studio was overrun by rioters who were after images of the De Witt brothers, the respected statesmen who had been lynched shortly before by the mob. The present drawing has a repair probably dating from shortly after this event, which thus might have caused the damage.

Provenance: - Anonymous sale, Huybrechts & Carré, The Hague, 26 March 1817, no. 60, Kunstboek C as ‘Het portrait van eenen geleerden; breed en krachtig met roet, door de Baan.’ (verso) - Private collection, Munich

Portrait of Johann Maurits von Nassau- Siegen by Jan de Baen, c. 1668-1670 (Museum Mauritshuis Den Haag) ‘The Brazilian’

Johan Maurits, the Prince of Nassau-Siegen had been appointed Governor- General of Dutch Brazil in 1637, a position he held for six and a half years. Under his rule an extensive group of artists and scientist, among them Frans Post, Albert Eckhout and Georg Markgraf, depicted and researched the colonized country and its inhabitants. Upon his return, Johan Maurits had the Mauritshuis built, the city palace that was scornfully named ‘Sugar Palace’ by local residents for its flamboyance and as a reference to the industry that had raised the funds for it. The rooms formed a cabinet of curiosities filled with objects brought back and visitors could marvel at the paintings by Frans Post and Albert Eckhout, the many stuffed animals and West Indian artifacts. Upon his return to The Hague, the prince eventually brought a group of Tupaya Indigenous to perform a dance in his new residence. The nakedness of the dancers provoked shocked and indignant reactions among the spectators.

Dutch Brazil consisted of a coastal area in the north-east that admiral Loncq had captured from the Portuguese for the WIC in 1630 (for a portrait of Loncq see Uit Verre Streken, November 2015, no. 4). The Portuguese had set up a lucrative sugar industry that was reliant on the labour of enslaved Africans. Hence it became the first large Dutch plantation colony in the Atlantic area. At first, the Dutch regarded slavery and colonisation as an ‘unchristian’ act perpetrated by their Catholic enemies. There were a number of Dutch individuals in the early decades of the 17th century, including pastors, but also administrators, who spoke out against inhumane slavery, but the beckoning profits silenced their criticism.

Johan Maurits occupies a central role in this history and was therefore nicknamed ‘the Brazilian’. After his arrival he revived the plantation economy by providing loans to the Portuguese to run the (abandoned) sugar mills, but quickly felt he was too reliant on them. In 1637 the Governor equipped a fleet tasked with capturing the Portuguese trading post Elmina Castle in Ghana and later the city of Luanda in Angola as well: the most important slave depots at that time. As such, Johan Maurits, under the orders of the WIC, brought the Dutch into the slave trade.

Often regarded as an enlightened ruler, with respect for Catholics, Jews and the Indigenous population, Johan Maurits’ tolerance should not be overestimated. His leadership was more pragmatic in nature than it was ethical: he needed the Portuguese Catholics and Jews to keep sugar production going and the indigenous peoples as allies and to provide the settlement with food.

For further reading: www.zebregsroell.com/johan-maurits 4 Jacob van Campen (1596-1657) ‘Ver Sacrum’ (design for a decoration program)

Black ink and grey wash over black chalk, heightened in white, on blue-grey paper, 501 x 394 mm

The Ver Sacrum or Sacred Spring, mentioned in Livy and Strabo, was a mysterious ritual amongst the early tribes that inhabited the Apennine Peninsula. It consisted of sacrificing the full harvest of a spring in times of scarcity, after disasters or during wartime and all young men born in the given year were sent out to found colonies as soon as they had reached the age of adolescence. This narrative perfectly lent itself to “conceal the shameful and cruel reality [of colonization] under the banner of poetry and the prestige of religion. Charged with a sacred mission, [the people] became both the instruments of a divine will and of a rite.” (Jacques Heurgon, Trois études sur le ‘Ver sacrum’, Brussels 1957). Thus, the present drawing can be understood as the allegory and justification for the foundation of colonies. Strabo’s version of the legend was taken as a principal source for the composition, given his steadfast reputation amongst the 17th-century elite. The Greek geographer was the only one to mention child sacrifices dedicated to the god Mars, in addition to the usual offerings. According to Strabo, the young men were led to their final settling place by a bull, here depicted in the right foreground. In the mid-1630s, Van Campen became involved as architect in the design and construction of the Mauritshuis, which was a collaboration between the client Johan Maurits and his neighbour the secretary and poet Constantijn Huygens who supervised the building process. Van Campen also signed for the interior design, that was clad with precious woods from the West Indian colonies. As with all commissions that he carried out for the palaces of Frederik Hendrik, complex decoration programs were devised for each space with allegorical paintings, tapestries and sculptures, to the greater honour and glory of the occupant. Van Campen’s design was in all likelihood intended for execution in trompe l’oeil or stucco as adornment for the Mauritshuis and justification of his actions. A drawing by Pieter Post from 1652 shows a painted oval under the stairs in the vestibule, in direct eyesight of anyone entering the house, however, it remains uncertain whether the design was actually implemented. In the archive of Johan Maurits there is a complex decoration-sketch attributed to Van Campen, which has not been applied as such (Royal Archives, inv. A4-1476-103). Unfortunately, the original interior of the Mauritshuis was lost in a fire in 1704.

Provenance: - Fundatie van de Vrijvrouwe van Renswoude, Utrecht (according to a handwritten note verso) - Auction De Vries, Amsterdam, L.X. Lannoy et al, 19 May 1925, lot 355 (as by Jacob Jordaens) - Unicorno Collection, Saam and Lily Nijstad, Lochem - Their sale, Auction Sotheby’s Amsterdam, 19 May 2004, lot 53 (as Flemish School, 17th century) - Collection Saskia Nijstad, The Hague

For further reading: www.zebregsroell.com/ver-sacrum 5 A unique Dutch lacquered Chinoiserie cabinet on stand Holland or West-Friesland, late 17th century

H. 202 x W. 155.5 x D. 55.5 cm

At the end of the 17th-century European lacquer art, as an attempt to imitate imported Japanese and Chinese lacquer art, started in Holland and England but rapidly spread to other European countries. If European lacquer art sought to imitate East Asian lacquer art, this was not very successful. First of all, the essential raw material for East-Asian lacquer work, the resin of the Rhus verniciflua tree, did not exist in Europe and raw lacquer could not be exported to Europe because it did not survive the long sea journey. Once dried it is impossible to dissolve. This meant that initially, European lacquer workers had to work with inadequate materials. However, they quickly learned to develop suitable substitutes; spirit-lacquer/varnish and even better, linseed oil-lacquer. Secondly the Chinese and particularly the Japanese decorations were not well understood, so European lacquer workers developed their own style of decoration, combining elements of eastern and western decorative styles, which also had to be adapted to the form of European furniture, such the present Dutch shaped cabinet. The decoration of intertwined tendrils can be found in a number of Dutch 17th century lacquered cabinets. In the collection of the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum Rotterdam (inv. B 394) there is a veneered and lacquered cabinet (c.1660-1670) with the same decoration of intricately intertwined tendrils. However on a veneered cabinet (c. 1690-1700) with inlaid panels of Japanese lacquer in the Rijksmuseum (inv. BK-1979-21), and similarly on black lacquered cabinet-on-stand (c. 1700) with gold and mother of pearl decoration previously sold by us after prints by Joan Nieuhof published in 1665 (see, Uit Verre Streken, June 2005, no. 2) one can find this motif. The present cabinet is an excellent example of high-quality lacquer work in the Netherlands in the late 17th century. In the 18th-century lacquer work would become very successful in several workshops all over Europe.

For further reading: www.zebregsroell.com/dutch-chinoiserie-cabinet 7 Small Dutch oak folding church chair, kerkstoeltje, with velvet upholstery Mid 17th century

H. 73.5 x W 36 x D. 45 cm

This small church chair, known in the 17th century as predickstoel (sermon chair) was meant to be taken to church to sit on, generally by women only, during the sermon in the otherwise relatively empty church. Another folding church chair made of rosewood and ebony with twisted columns in the back, is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. R.B.K. 16073). The model of the present chair, with two rows of balusters in the back, is illustrated in one of the furniture designs by Crispijn de Passe II (1593/94 – after 1670). This model was made in the Dutch East Indies as well. In a private collection in Japan, there is a Japanese transition-style lacquered folding church chair, dated 1630-1650, probably 6 based on an ebony Dutch A rare pair of Dutch decorated Chinese porcelain ’Brabands Vryheid’ cup- East Indian model (Oliver and-saucers Impey & Christiaan Late 18th century Jörg, Japanese Export Lacquer Diam. 13.5 cm (saucer) / diam. 8.7 cm (cup) 1580-1850, Amsterdam Chinese white porcelain with under-glaze blue flower decoration. Polychrome 2005, ill. 292). overpainted in the Northern or Southern Netherlands, showing the Maid of Liberty holding a banner and a rather friendly looking lion, Brabant’s heraldic figure. This image and the inscription ‘BRABANDS VRYHEID’ and ‘BRABANDS V HEYD’ refer to the insurrection in the Southern Netherlands (present day Belgium) in the years 1787-1790 which let to the temporary overthrow of the Habsburg rule there. The crowned coat of arms is that of Arendonk, a place in Belgium Brabant where the insurrection had its first success. The cross on top of the the coat of arms refers probably to the conservative-clerical party of the ‘Statisten’, one of the fractions of the ‘patriots’ fighting the Habsburg rule.

(see also: collection of the Noordbrabants Museum, inv. nr. 11579.1) 8 This exceptionally rare long-case clock A Surinam-themed Amsterdam long-case clock probably was ordered by one of the many The Netherlands, 1746-1756, dial signed Nicolaas Weylandt/Amsterdam wealthy families living along the Amsterdam canals that owned or had shares in plantations The case of the clock is made of Rio palisander veneer and snakewood, in Surinam. It’s a successful marriage of with the arch showing a painted scene of the harbour of Paramaribo, Fort the work of an accomplished 18th century Zeelandia and Dutch ships in anchorage, the spandrels decorated with Amsterdam clockmaker, a Dutch cabinetmaker figural representations of the four continents, the centre of the dial painted working with exotic tropical timbers, a with Mercury, the god of trade, seated on a bale signed VCS (Vereenigde woodcarver familiar with both Dutch rococo Compagnie Suriname), and one of the barrels bearing the initials “RBS,” on design and Surinamese iconography, and the left the river god of the Surinam river, with a Dutch three-master in the a painter with knowledge, whether first- background. hand or through other visualisations, of the Paramaribo waterfront. In the production of H. 259 x W. 60 x D. 35 cm (case) this Gesamtkunstwerk, only the name of the Diam. 32 cm (clock dial) clockmaker is known: Nicloaas Weylandt (c. 1700 - 1754), who had a business situated on the Nieuwendijk near the Haarlemmersluis in Amsterdam from 1742 until his death. The case is made of imported timbers from Surinam; Rio-palisander and snakewood. A very similar clock-case, veneered in walnut, is illustrated in J. Zeeman, De Nederlandse staande klok, Zwolle, 1996, and dated c. 1740. That clock is also by Weylandt, so the case most likely also is by the same cabinetmaker working for Weylandt. Zeeman points out that 18th-century Dutch clockmakers relied extensively on imported clock parts, like the clock face, the various dials and clock hands, mainly from Britain. Besides, Amsterdam clockmakers outsourced the cabinetmaking, carving and painting to independent artisans. The Surinam character of the clock is evident not only in the timbers used, nor in the painted view of Paramaribo in the clock arch, but also very specific in the depiction of the parrots in the carved rococo centre block in the arch and the smaller carving in the door. Weylandt’s clock has a 7-day twin-barrel anchor movement, with a bell-strike on the hour and half-hour. It is fitted with a second dial, day aperture and alarm setting disk.

Exhibited: De Grote Suriname Tentoonstelling, Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, 5 October 2019 - 2 February 2020. 9 A rare Dutch Caribbean silver water-scoop Netherlands where he died, 34 years of age. Curaçao, circa 1873, indistinctly marked, engraved with initials G R P Curaçao was a small community with few silversmiths working there during the 19th century. Few pieces were marked, and much of what they made L. 35 cm / Weight 221 grams was exported to mainland South America. Therefore, very little silver can be ascribed with any certainty to Curaçao silversmiths. One other unmarked The form of the water scoop is derived from a half coconut on a wooden silver water scoop, from the collection of Mr Van de Walle, is illustrated handle. Silver water scoops, in different forms, are quite common in Mid- and in Uit Verre Streken, June 2014, nr. 6. In the 1940s Van de Walle collected South America, but unknown in Asia. Silver was supposed to disinfect water, and published on antique Curaçao furniture and silver while working there but a silver water scoop undoubtedly also was a sign of the prosperity of its as a journalist. He was the first Dutchman to collect the applied arts from owner. the Dutch Antilles (see J. Veenendaal, Meubelen en zilver van G R P probably relates to Gerard Rudolf Palm (Curaçao 1845 - The Hague Curaçao, in Antiek, tijdschrift voor oude kunst en 1880), son of Frederik Palm and Maria Hendrika Johanna Elisabeth Latté. kunstnijverheid, November 1994, pp. 24-31). Hermanus Palm born in Karlskrona, Sweden, was the first of the Palm family to arrive in Curaçao where he died before 1777. Gerard Rudolf was the fifth generation of the Palm family in Curaçao and was a slave owner in 1862 when slavery was abolished in the Dutch Caribbean because he was compensated 400 guilders. Gerard Rudolf was registered as a law student at the University of Leiden in 1862, and as a lawyer in Curaçao in 1873. In the same year, he was appointed cantonal judge and on April 1st member of the Court of Justice. Gerard Rudolf married Pauline Reina Eliza Boer (Curaçao 1850) daughter of Henry Boer and Arendina Jacoba Alberdinck in 1870. Together they had a son who died at the age of one, and a daughter who had no children. Gerard Rudolf had four half-brothers and two half-sisters whom all had several children, and today there are many members of the Palm family. Henry Boer, the father of Gerard’s wife, probably was the same as lieutenant H. Boer who made the architectural drawings for the new church of San Willibrordo in Curaçao in 1849. On August 15th, 1879, because of health problems, Gerard Rudolf sailed to the 10 A pair of Chinese export porcelain plates with the Luls family coat-of-arms Qing-dynasty, Qianlong period, circa 1765

Diam. 23 cm

These two armorial plates in the Meissen-style are decorated with the head of a black man against a yellow background, crowned and flanked by two bears. Often, black men were used in arms as a sign of international trade and worldliness and not slave-trade; however, these particular arms are an exception. The first to use this coat-of-arms was Gerard Luls, alderman in 1679 and burgomaster in 1687 of Wijk bij Duurstede, a small town in the south of the Province of Utrecht. In 1700 he moved to Curaçao where he acted as commissioner of the slave trade and in 1704 as Governor of Curaçao and owner of the plantation ‘Vriendenwijk’. During his time as commissioner, six ships arrived with a total of 2858 enslaved that survived the journey. Luls supervised selection, branding with a scorching hot stamp, transport to the plantations of the WIC and the sale of these enslaved. In 1711 he died in Curaçao.

11 A case with taxidermy hummingbirds, His son, Mattheus (c. 1688-1767) also was burgomaster of Wijk bij Duurstede attributed to Rowland Ward (1848-1912) from 1712 untill 1716 and held several other important posts in the City and London, c. 1890-1910, engraved on the front glass ‘The Jungle, Piccadilly States of Utrecht. Mattheus probably commissioned this service of which only Circus, London’ an ewer, an oblong dish, a saucer dish (illustrated in Jochem Kroes, Chinese armorial porcelain for the Dutch market, Zwolle, 2007, p.281), and a coffee H. 76 x W. 56 x D. 9 cm cup and saucer (previously sold by us, see Uit Verre Streken, December 2013, no. 30) are known. Mattheus had eight children, including Willem Adriaan The bottom of the plain taped glass case is covered by faux-rockwork and who made a career in colonial South-East Asia and Jan who headed for the grass. From the top left-hand corner sprouts a branch on which thirty vividly Caribbean. Following his grandfather’s footsteps in Curaçao, he too owned coloured, iridescent South American hummingbirds are perched. several plantations, including ‘Vriendenwijk’, proving that the family had This is one of the most unusual cases by Rowland Ward because of the almost owned this plantation continuously. abstract composition of the branches and birds. The sheer talent for taxidermy Plates like these show the social, political and economic entanglement of the in the Ward family can be seen in the present case and in the exceptional Netherlands and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Very evident in Amsterdam, fire-screen by Rowland’s father, Henry Ward (1812-1878) illustrated inUit but also in smaller towns such as Wijk bij Duurstede. Verre Streken, March 2020, No. 1. 12 The diorama is fitted with lightning, fabricated with plaster, twigs, clay and Unique diorama depicting a North American river-scene other natural materials, the figures in painted plate-steel. On the river two United States of America, early 20th century rafts can be seen, one with four trappers the other with trappers and an enslaved and their communal luggage. On one of the crates on the luggage- H. 36 x W. 68.5 x D. 34 cm raft are the initials FH. In a canoe and on the shore are several North American Natives, some fishing and others cooking a meal. 13 Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809) ‘Ambassadeur de Siam’ and ‘La Sultana Reine’

Both titled lower centre, the drawing of the ambassador inscribed with colours intended for the prints, executed in 1748.

Both red and black pencil on paper, H. 23.5 x W. 17.5 cm

The present sheets are preparatory drawings for plates 16 and 29 of the book Caravane du Sultan à la Mecque, Mascarade Turque donnée à Rome par Messieurs les Pensionnaires de l’Academie de France et leurs amis au Carnaval de l’année 1748. Vien, born in Montpellier, at an early age entered the studio of Charles Natoire and Charles Parrocel in Paris. In 1743 he won the Prix de Rome and the following year he left for Rome to become a pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome. Vien spent most of his time in Rome designing costumes and chariots for masques, painting religious subjects for Roman churches and developing his study of nature. In 1748 Vien made many costume designs

for fancy dresses as part of the French Academy’s pensionnaires carnival celebrations. This was one of the premier events in the Roman calendar, preceding the Spring season. The students of the Academy were famous for their elaborately staged and costumed pageants, which were usually based on a foreign theme. The pensionnaires’ Turkish masques of 1748 which Vien designed, was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon. Based on a Roman triumph the parade of the academicians winding through the streets of Rome was heralded by trumpeters and drummers followed by twenty horsemen and splendid horse-drawn floats carrying the students disguised to evoke stock figures of the Turkish court, sultans, sultanas, viziers, eunuchs, etc. Their sumptuous costumes were made of ordinary materials cleverly painted and all figures, even the sultanas, were played by exclusively male pensionnaires. The masque of 1748 was so celebrated that the pensionnaires were invited to be guests of Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld at a sumptuous banquet followed by a ball. Vien drew thirty-two designs for the fête, all of which are now in the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris. In 1749 Etienne Fessard published Viens’s engravings after his designs in a series entitled ‘Caravane du Sultan à la Mecque’. The present two drawings are preparatory drawings for these engravings. 14 15 Philip Reeves (Nairobi 1952) Winifred Elizabeth Beatrice Hardman (1890-1972) A Massai/Rendille tribe girl from Kenya ‘Eve (The Snake)’

Signed P Reeves and numbered 4/8 Signed bottom right Hardman, on a sticker at the reverse titled ‘The Snake’ Foundry mark Luc Harzé, Brussels and with address Walton End, Walton Lane, Bosham, Chichester, and Price 50 gns. Bronze H. 36.6 cm Oil on board, 91.5 x 71.4 cm

Philip Reeves, born in Nairobi from a British father and Kenyan mother, worked mainly in terracotta. First in Nairobi and later in London where he successfully exhibits his final works in bronze that are cast in Brussels. 16 Winifred Elizabeth Beatrice Hardman (1890-1972) ‘Zulu Dancers’

Signed bottom right Hardman, titled on a sticker at the reverse and with address Walton End, Walton Lane, Bosham, Chichester, and Price 45 gns. Oil on board, 99 x 87 cm

Winifred, born at Rawtenstall, Lancashire 25 May 1890, daughter of George Henry Hardman (1855-1899) a rich wool and cotton manufacturer, and Anne Eliza née Catterall (1855-1934), was educated at home by a governess. She studied from 1913 till 1921 at St, John’s School of Art and at the Royal Academy Schools, winning the Armitage bronze and silver medals for perspective. Here she was a member of the New Autumn Group of 21 artists formed in November 1925 around St. John’s Wood and exhibiting together. Living in Ipswich, from 1945 till 1949, she was a member of the Ipswich Art Club. Around 1953 she settled in Bosham where she died in 1972, remaining unmarried. Her work was rather unpretentious, flowers and portraits, until she spent some time in South Africa in the 1930s where she was much inspired by indigenous African life and culture. In Africa her oeuvre changed radically, and she made her most inspired and frivolous work in this period. an ce O Indian 17 A high-relief carved ebony table cabinet Sri Lanka (or Batavia), late 17th – early 18th century

H. 33.7 x W. 51 x D. 33 cm

A beautifully carved ebony table cabinet, carved on all sides with two doors carved in- and outside, revealing seven small drawers, with gilt and engraved copper mounts and hinges and the carcass of Indian rosewood. With a paper label underneath with initials “MCB” in manuscript. “MCB” most likely relates to Lady Mary Catherine Berkeley (1829-1924), née Browne, daughter of Thomas Browne, the 3rd Earl of Kenmare (Ireland). In 1851 she married Robert Berkeley of Worcestershire and they lived at Overbury Court House, Overbury, Worcestershire.

Provenance: remained in the Berkeley family by descent till December 2019.

18 The bell of the VOC fortress in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, marked JAFFANAPATNAM Aº 1747 VOC Cast in Jaffnapatnam or Colombo, 1747

H. 44 x Diam. 36.5 cm

In 1658 Rijcklof van Goens (1619-1682) conquered Jaffnapatnam, a crucial Portuguese town on the North-East coast of Sri Lanka, for the VOC. For an important portrait of him by Jürgen Ovens, see Uit Verre Streken, March 2018, no. 4. Within two decades of conquering, the Dutch built a new fortress at Jaffna overlooking the lagoon, as they considered the old Portuguese structure to be out of date. The new fort, built according to the Dutch notions, was provided with a new church named the Kruys Kerk, which was still in the fort as a museum in the 1990s. The two bells from the old Portuguese Church of the Lady of Miracles, one large and one small with legend ‘Nossa Senhora Dos Milagres de Jafanaptao 1648’ were hung in the new church. The smaller of the two continued to hang in the tower of the Jaffna church, but was eventually removed for safety and lodged in the vestry. The fortress has long been considered by historians and archaeologists to be one of the largest, strongest and best-preserved forts built by a European colonising power in Asia. However, during the severe struggle in the 1990s between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan army, which had a base in the old Dutch fort, the castle and the Kruys Kerk were largely destroyed. With financial aid from the Netherlands, the castle is being restored, but the church will unfortunately not be rebuilt. The present bell, with the VOC monogram and dated 1747, is likely to have been the bell of the belfry inside the fort or above the gate, used to call people to work, or to call the alarm. A bell with the monogram of a trading company is not very likely to have been a church bell to call people to church.

Provenance: Stenton House on the river Tay, near Dunkeld, Perthshire. Stenton Estate belonged to the Scottish Stewart family. The original part of the house dated to the 17th century with extensions in the 18th and 19 th centuries. Captain James Stewart (1784-1843), who died in Colombo, possibly took the bell from the fortress and sent it to the family estate in Scotland. The bell remained in Stenton House garden until the house was sold at the end of 2019.

19 A rare two-door low-relief carved ebony and ivory cabinet with gilt-brass mounts Sri Lanka, late 17th century

H. 32.5 x W. 40.2 x D. 28 cm

Ebony plates, finely carved with curly tendrils, fixed to a teak base, the inside of the doors with fixed white and red ivory plates, likewise, decorated with delicate, curling tendrils. Inside the cabinet eight various sized drawers with finely ivory carved plaques fixed with metal and ivory nails. The central bottom drawer depicting, inside a columned arch, two crowned lions sitting on their hind legs with their front paws against a tree with two parrots among its dense foliage, with gilt copper hinges, lock plates and corner pieces.

Indian, Sri Lankan and Indonesian furniture with deep relief carving, are always made of solid ebony. Fixing plates to a teak base was a practice used by ivory-workers for ivory chests and cabinets, where ivory plaques were fixed to a wooden base with ivory pins. Jan Veenendaal suggests that this kind of cabinet with fixed ebony plates was made by ivory-carvers of the Ætdatkætayamkãrayã pattalaya (guild) or kulaya (caste), living all over Sri Lanka but most especially in the centre of the island, in the kingdom of Kandy. It seems unlikely that a cabinet-maker using large quantities of ebony in chairs, settees and cupboards would take the trouble to saw thin plates to save ebony and then fasten this veneer onto a base of cheaper wood (Jan Veenendaal, Furniture from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India during the Dutch period, Museum Nusantara Delft, 1985, p.41). The carving of the crowned sitting lions, European in appearance, is in fact a decorative Sri Lankan design and not some illustration of a European family crest.

Provenance: Collection Harinxma thoe Slooten, an old Frisian noble family 20 An extremely rare large colonial pen-engraved bone and ivory inlaid ebony document box with silver mounts Coromandel Coast, Masulipatam, 1730-1750

H. 12.5 x W. 57 x D. 40 cm

There are a few similar document boxes with fine inlay of small flowers connected by curling vines, many of them with the coats-of-arms of high-ranking VOC- officials engraved on an ivory plaque in the centre of the lid. These boxes have always been thought to have been made in Vizagapatam. However, recently Jan Veenendaal convincingly argued that Masulipatam, about 300 kilometres south of Vizagapatam, and a much more important trade post for the Dutch than Vizagapatam, is much more likely to be the place where this type of box was ordered by the Dutch (Jan Veenendaal, De herkomst van documentenkisten met Nederlandse heraldische wapens van hoge VOC- functionarissen in Azië, Aziatische Kunst, jaargang 49, nr.1, maart 2019, pg. 53-60). The most famous amongst these boxes are those made on order by Jan Albert Sichterman (c. 1736), the Falck family (c. 1735), Jacob Mossel (c. 1740), Galenus Mersen (c. 1740) and Jan van Oordt (c.1740). The present box does not have a family crest in the central oval medallion. However, instead, inside a double ring two lions rampant crowned, on both sides of a large decorative flowering plant, arguably relating to the Dutch national coat-of-arms.

For further reading: www.zebregsroell.com/ sichterman-box 21 A large ‘shikar’ tiger skin (Panthera tigris tigris) prayer- mat by VanIngen & VanIngen, Mysore, with rare slightly agape mouth India, circa 25/11/1942, taken by Mr. M.P.M. Halal

L. 300 x W. 220 cm

In good condition, with all claws and whiskers intact, the rug with a head mount, jaw slightly agape, hand-painted glass eyes, mounted upon typical original canvas backing with black felt trim, stencilled number 18585-1 and care label to the underside. Including a certificate of age and a copy of the VanIngen order books with this order showing.

Provenance: Bombay Natural History Society

VanIngen & VanIngen, or Van Ingen of Mysore were Indian taxidermists located in Mysore, and best known for their tiger and leopard taxidermy trophy mounts. Patrick A. Morris states in A History of Taxidermy; Art, Science and Bad Taste (MPM Publishing, 2010) that VanIngen processed more than 43,000 tiger and leopard trophies in less than 90 years of operation. Their taxidermy is still found throughout the world in the form of head mounts, full mounts, flat animal rugs and rug mounts with heads attached. The firm was established by Eugene VanIngen in the 1890s and served the highest in international nobility as well as the Maharajas of India, preserving their ‘shikar’ hunting trophies in the most lifelike poses and in the utmost beauty, with unparalleled attention to detail. Their work was synonymous with quality and fine workmanship, and the ‘snarling’ open mouth expression of the big cat mouths was one of VanIngen’s trademark Moghul royalty in India hunted tigers for pleasure and often invited important qualities, a, feature rigorously studied and made possible visitors on their hunting trips. Tigers were hunted far into the 20th century only by special head moulds which had specifically built almost to the brink of extinction. Nowadays, fortunately, tiger numbers are grooves on the nose area. Glass eyes were imported rising, and protection has established vital populations of these majestic from Germany, and hand-painted specifically for each animals in India. Part of the revenue of this skin will be donated to a tiger- taxidermy mount. VanIngen constructed manikins and conservation programme. moulds of all sizes, meaning that they could produce mounts of consistent quality for a variety of poses for head For the entire collection of VanIngen taxidermy, visit: mounts to full life-size mounts. www.zebregsroell.com/vaningen-tiger-taxidermy 22 A pair of extremely rare taxidermy tiger head by VanIngen & VanIngen, Mysore, from the Kensington Palace Collection India, 1935, taken by the Prince of Teck, the Earl of Athlone

H. 75 x W. 47 x D. 43 cm each

Provenance: - Prince of Teck, Alexander Cambridge, the 1st Earl of Athlone, the 4th Governor of South-Africa and the 16th Governor of Canada, cousin to King George V, Kensington Palace - Private collection, United Kingdom

23 A coromandel, Indian rosewood and palmwood miniature chest of drawers with silver mounts Sri Lanka, late 18th century

H. 23.3 x W. 36.4 x D. 23.5 cm

This chest-of-drawers has three drawers, the top one with partitions for writing materials, such as pens, inkpots, paper, etc. Document boxes, miniature table cabinets, chests and chests-of-drawers are often mentioned in eighteenth-century household and office inventories. For employees of the Dutch East India Company, who were regularly moved from one outpost to another, document boxes and also apparently miniature furniture was not only very useful for storage of writing materials or small valuable items but also as possibly status symbols. For a similar chest of drawers with a writing slope on top, see Uit Verre Streken, June 2012, no. 7. 24 A Sri Lankan mãrã or East Indian walnut ‘Burgomaster’ chair Galle, early 19th century

H. 81.5 x W. 74 cm / Seat height 45.5 cm / Seat diam. 58 cm

The plain, unadorned round-back chair of the late 17th-early 18th century was superseded in the second half of the 18th century by chairs with carved and pierced decoration in the rococo taste. Judging from the many examples of burgomaster chairs, dating from the third quarter of the 18th century, the round chair enjoyed enormous popularity in the former Dutch East Indies. Later they also became popular with the English in India and Sri Lanka. After the Dutch were expelled from Sri Lanka by the British in 1796, burgomaster chairs continued to be made in Sri Lanka for the English, well into the 19th century. Jaffer points out that this popularity can be partly ascribed to the view held among early 19th century English antiquaries that the round chair was an early English form. This idea was propagated in Henry Shaw’s Specimen of Ancient Furniture (published in monthly parts from 1832 to 1836 and then in a single volume in 1836) which illustrated a Rococo example and alleged that it belonged to the period of William III (A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, p. 379).

25 A fine coromandel wood miniature cupboard Sri Lanka, 18th century

H. 89.5 x W. 60.5 x D. 28.8 cm

This entire four-door miniature cupboard is made of the finest coromandel wood and has an arched pediment with a carving of an exotic face with plumes. These pieces of miniature furniture presumably were showpieces as well as toys for the wealthy Dutch or Indo-Dutch women to collect their little treasures in. 26 In the top of the shaped cornice there is a carving of a butterfly or moth. A charming satin and rosewood, ebony and teak collectors’ table-cabinet Under the cornice two panelled doors with scorched chequered motif, and with ivory knobs under the doors one long drawer. When the doors are locked, so is the Sri Lanka, second half 18th century drawer. Behind the two doors there are eight drawers, suitable to store small collectors’ items, such as a coin collection, or mineral specimens, small H. 86.5 x W. 62.5 x D. 34.7 cm shells, collections of animal teeth, etc. The 17th and 18th centuries saw a wide-spread interest in exotic cultures and collecting of botanical, zoological and geological specimens. Specialist cabinets to store and display these items were a natural extension of this collecting mania. This particular cabinet was probably meant for collecting butterflies, as the carving in the hood suggests. 28 The highly important Marriage Cabinet of Governor-General Diederik Durven (1676-1740) of the former Dutch East-Indies Sri Lanka, circa 1724

H. 204 x W. 145 x D. 55 cm 27 A Vizagapatam ebony and pen-engraved ivory inlaid rosewood document box on later European stand The box, mid 18th century, the oak and partly ebonized stand, late 18th/early 19th century

H. 12.5 x W. 49 x D. 32.7 cm (box) / H. 76.5 cm (including stand)

Document boxes for storage of pen and paper were, of course, a basic requirement of Dutch and English East India Company officials and merchants and were widely manufactured in Vizagapatam, mainly for the English. The extensively ebony and pen-engraved Sri Lankan cabinets with compass-roses ivory inlaid teak two-door cabinet rests inlaid with ebony and ivory are known, on a table with cabriole legs, and has but the extensive decoration in this a carved coat-of-arms in the middle of cabinet is unheard off. the pediment, representing the Dutch The coat-of-arms of the two geese over a heraldic lion holding a sword in his right snake belongs to Diederik Durven (Delft claw and a bundle of seven arrows, 1676 - 1740), first married to Jacoba representing the seven Provinces for the van Breda (Amsterdam 1683 - Batavia Dutch Republic, in his left claw. The before 1724). Later he remarried with doors have two identically decorated Anna Catherina de Roo (Batavia 1699 - panels; under a clock indicating one Delft 1741) and they had a daughter, Ida o’clock (probably the time of the Anna, born on 13 December 1725. The marriage), the Durven coat-of-arms with present cupboard was probably made for two geese facing the same direction over Diederik’s marriage to Anna Catherina in a snake below a stylised helmet. In the Batavia in 1725. middle, a typical Sri Lankan inlaid star or Diederik Durven studied Law in Leiden compass-rose. Here under the bride and and became a solicitor for the VOC- groom stand inside a bower or chapel Chamber in Delft in 1704. On the with a cockerel on top, and under a fourth of January 1706 Diederik sailed crown the couple holds between them to Indonesia aboard the ‘Grimmesteyn’, a heart within a horseshoe for luck in arriving in Jakarta (Batavia) in August. love. Both sides of the cupboard likewise There Durven worked 14 years as a extensively decorated with flowers and lawyer in ‘de Raad van Justitie’ and was vines. On the right side of the cabinet, appointed extraordinary member of the at the top two angels with trumpets Council of India in 1720. After the death holding a crown over a heart pierced by of Governor-general Mattheus de Haan in two arrows, and under a tree, a figure on 1729, Durven was elected his successor. the left holding a cross and a figure on However, by surpassing a few older the right holding a ladder. Below them a members of the Council with his election, man smoking a pipe and holding a staff Durven made enemies. inside a small bower with a cockerel on In addition to this bad start for Durven, top, flanked by two large birds. On the the Directors in Amsterdam felt that left side of the cabinet, again under two they were losing control over Batavia, angels with trumpets holding a crown as if they ever had much direct control over a heart pierced by two arrows, over a country on the other side of under a tree a figure on the left holding the world which it took six months the ladder and on the right a crucifix. to reach anyway. However, under Below that two houses with a woman in Durven, the drop in moral standards the doorway of the house to the left, and and the rise of corruption in the city a man in the doorway of the house to the reached an all-time high. In order right, possibly the parental houses of the to make it clear that Batavia had to marriage couple. At the bottom again a implement the policies decided in man smoking a pipe and holding a staff Amsterdam, and that corruption was inside a small bower with a cock on top not tolerated, a scapegoat was needed and flanked by two large birds. for the malfunctioning of the colonial government. On the 9th of October 1731 the Directors in Amsterdam took a stunning decision of recalling Governor-General Diederik Durven, his director- general Cornelis Hasselaar, two members of the Council of India, Hendrick van Baarle and Wouter Hendrickz. They had to return to the motherland immediately “zonder gagie of eenig commando” (without payment or rank). They were made the chief offenders for corruption and decline of the VOC in the East and their dismissal was to be a clear warning to VOC officials in Batavia. However, it did not make much difference in faraway Batavia. Back in the Netherlands Diederik took legal action against the VOC. The case dragged on till his death on February 26st, 1740. Anna Catherina died a year later, on February 28, 1741, leaving a huge estate, but there is no mention of the cupboard. Overall in a good condition, this cabinet has some remarkable old restorations. There are saw-lines in the doors, a replacement of the keyhole and the stand is 18th century but perhaps added in Holland. Also, the pediment has been sawed apart and put together again. Normally Governor-Generals were allowed up to eighteen large chests to fill with their belongings upon their return, however, Durven was sent to the Netherlands without ‘payment or rank’, and with only six large chests to take all his belongings back to Holland. It appears that the cabinet was disassembled perhaps to fit in a large chest or just to reduce the space it needed, to be reassembled again after arrival in the Netherlands. Possibly the reassembling never took place during Diederik and Anna’s lives and therefore the cabinet is not mentioned among their belongings. Illustrated is the original pamphlet dating from 1731, Lyst der Opontbodene Personen van Batavia, en het Eyland Ceylon, stating that Durven was summoned back to the Netherlands and could only bring six kiste with him.

It has long been assumed that Diederik Durven is Governor Duff depicted on Chinese export porcelain, but there is no evidence for this.

Provenance: Auction S.J. Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 7 March 1961, lot 1540 (ill.) With Carlton Hobbs, then in an American private collection, and finally in the English trade until May 2020 29 A magnificent coromandel cabinet on stand Sri Lanka, mid 18th century

H. 234 x W. 147 x D. 79 cm.

The typical Dutch colonial cupboard with two doors, surmounted by an architectural stepped pediment and resting on a table with two drawers and cabriole-shaped legs ending in ball-and-claw feet. Rather exceptional about this cupboard are the so-called ‘orgelgebogen’ (organ bowed) sculpted frames around the doors, the side panels and in the table part with the drawers, which are accentuated by the beautiful pattern of the finest coromandel wood. The carving of the apron and particularly the form of the scrolling stretchers connecting the legs are typical for Dutch-Sri Lankan furniture. Also notable is the fact that every inch of the cabinet has been made in massive coromandel wood, making it heavy, but highly durable.

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a l e p i h rc A n sia Indone 30 A Collection of fine Indonesian gold jewellery

Gold Bali priest ring with nine Gold Bali priest ring with blue Gold ring with ruby, Central- Gold ring with ‘Sri’ inscription, astrological Hindu stones, sapphire, (late 19th century) Javanese period (8th-10th century) Central-Javanese period navratnas, antique Burma spinel, (8th-10th century) blue sapphire, cat’s eye, yellow sapphire, emerald, diamond, pearl, coral, orange garnet and turquoise, (late 19th-early 20th century)

Gold ring with blue sapphire, Gold ring with emerald, Central- Gold ring with ‘Sri’ inscription, Gold ring, Central-Javanese period Central-Javanese period Javanese period (8th-10th century) Central-Javanese period (8th-10th century) (8th-10th century) (8th-10th century)

Gold ring with blue glass seal, Gold ring with light blue stone, Gold ring with blue sapphire, Gold ring with ruby, Central-Javanese Central-Javanese period probably sapphire, Central-Javanese Central-Javanese period period (8th-10th century) (8th-10th century) period (8th-10th century) (8th-10th century) 31 A delicate Indonesian silver bracelet in the form of a Naga Java, 19th/early 20th century, apparently unmarked

Diam. of the opening: 5.5 cm / largest width: 8 cm (possibly enlargeable)

Naga (Sanskrit for serpent) in Hinduism is a mythical half-snake half-human being. They live in the underground Kingdom called Naga-loka, which is filled with resplendent palaces, beautifully ornamented with precious gems. They are guardians of treasure and also associated with water, sea, lakes and rivers. They are potentially dangerous but often beneficial to humans, and only Gold ring with engraved Sanskrit Gold ring with “Sri” inscription, dangerous to the truly evil. letter OM, Central-Javanese Central Javanese period period (8th-10th century (8tth-10th century)

Gold ring with ruby, Central- Gold Bali priest’s ring with spinel, Javanese period (8th-10th century) (late 19th-early 20th century)

Gold ear-ornaments with diamond Gold ear-ornaments with diamond and and spinel, Central-Javanese ruby, Central-Javanese period period (8th-12th century) (8th-12th century) 32 An Indonesian gilt-silver, gold filigree and diamond chest ornament, Kaloeng tangallan (East) Java, 19th century

L. 35 (incl. chain) x W. 11 cm

33 A rare silver ‘Kwab’ bowl and cover Indonesia, Batavia, 4th quarter 17th century, apparently unmarked

H. 18.5 x W. 21 cm Weight 587 grams

The present silver covered bowl is an excellent example of the ‘Kwab’ or auricular style silver objects made in Batavia, former Dutch East-Indies, in the late 17th century. This style consists of lavish organic forms together with fantastic sea creatures, masks and grotesques (for an overview of Kwab-style see: Reinier Baarsen, Kwab, ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, Rijksmuseum 2018). Although a similar style already arose in Renaissance Italy, the auricular style flourished in the early 17th century in the work of the Utrecht silversmiths Paulus van Vianen (c. 1570-1613) and his brother Adam van Vianen (1568-1627). The present bowl and cover are decorated with Kwab stylized elephant heads and trunks, bordering empty fields. In Batavia inventories, these bowls are described as ‘Een silvere watercom met sijne piering’, a silver water bowl with its dish. Very few complete sets of bowls together with their dishes have survived. One such a set marked M.G. and with town mark of Batavia is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (see: Asia in Amsterdam, p. 104-105).

Exhibited: “Zilver uit Batavia,” April 21st - November 4th, 2012, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag 34 A silver Indonesian Peranakan plate Jakarta (Batavia), 1st quarter 18th century, apparently unmarked, engraved at the reverse DLN 05298676

Diam. 27.5 cm Weight 317 grams

The undulating rim of the plate has four cartouches decorated with various birds amongst the flowers of the four seasons, cherry blossom (winter), peony (spring), lotus (summer) and chrysanthemum (autumn), separated by trellis work. The middle of the plate is decorated with two phoenixes amongst blossoming peonies: clearly Indo- Chinese or so-called Peranakan work. From about 1680 until De Chinese Moord, the Chinese Murder, in 1740, the Chinese were the largest community in Jakarta (Batavia) and provided an essential contribution to the development of the city. A similar plate was in the Dutch Reformed Church in Depok, according to tradition donated to the church by Cornelis Chastelein, Ordinary Member of the Council of the Indies from 1705 untill his death in 1714. Depok was one of Chastelein’s estates where he had a pepper plantation. He bought twelve enslaved families for the estate, but since he opposed slavery he converted as many enslaved as he could to Christianity so he could free them. The Council of Batavia had ruled the slavery of Christians was against the Bible, so Chastelein was able to free at least 200 enslaved. 35 An Indonesian Yogya-silver plate Yogyakarta or Kotagede, 1935-1940, marked, (alloy) 800 and maker’s mark PH (Prawirohardjo, act. from 1935)

Diam. 27.2 cm Weight 454 grams

The plate hammered repoussé with flower, leaf and tendril motives shining against a blackened background. Under the influence of Islam, depictions of animal and human figures disappeared almost entirely from Indonesian decorative arts, except for the peacock and snake, Naga. Yogya-silver after 1930 has nevertheless absorbed many diverse artistic influences; the Indo- Javanese style from the Buddhist-Hindu period in Indonesian history, the transitional style between the Hindu and Islamic periods from the time of the Majapahit Kingdom (14th and 15th century) and Chinese and European stylistic influences. The most important European stylistic influences being the Arts and Crafts, Jugendstil, Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles.

36 A silver filigree casket Probably Indonesia, Padang, early 18th century, unmarked

H. 10.5 x W. 11.8 x D. 8.7 cm

Since silver filigree boxes are unmarked, it is often difficult to know where they were made unless one knows the provenance. Silver filigree was made in Europe but most of these items, made for the European market, came and still come from Asia; India (Goa and Karimnagar), Indonesia (Batavia and West Sumatra), Sri Lanka and China (Canton) and in all these different places it were often mainly Chinese silversmiths who were involved in making silver filigree work. 37 A ruyi-shaped Shakudo-style erotic tobacco or snuff box, relief-decorated In Dutch culture the verb ‘vogelen’ (catching a bird) is another word for with silvered applied figures having sex and a bird escaping from his cage indicates loss of chastity. The Possibly Jakarta (Batavia), first half 18th century lady with the bare breasts, while making the sign of sealed lips to the lady behind her, who is pointing towards heaven, seems to be caressing the bird H. 2.2 x L. 12.1 x W. 8 cm held in the sleeping man’s groin. 17th century Dutch pictures and poetry are full of birds, and also dogs, with suggestive erotic meanings and the illustration on the present box certainly fits perfectly in this tradition. The shakudo-style of the box and the Dutch design decoration suggests that either Nagasaki or Batavia might be the place where this box was made for a Dutch client, either by Chinese or by Japanese craftsmen. When Japan closed itself off from the rest of the world in about 1640, the Japanese were not only prohibited from leaving the country but also Japanese abroad were forbidden to return. Some Japanese craftsmen remained outside Japan, in China, Tonkin and Batavia where they possibly continued to perform their ‘shakudo’ Japanese crafts, called ‘sawasa’ in Batavia. However, the ubiquitous Chinese certainly also mastered this technique. A similar box was auctioned at Bonhams Hong Kong, 24 November 2013, lot 6, in the sale of the ‘Speelman Collection of Imperial Tribute Snuff Boxes’. This box also has several erotic references; a European lady wearing loose clothing, with an exotic bird perched on her left hand, a man peeping and in the background a farmer spreading seedlings. The inside of the lid bearing a scene of two figures indulged in passionate kissing, flanked by a pair of doves. Surely, a Dutchman having a little tobacco or snuff with his friends, chuckled at this very erotic, though prudish, imagery.

This box is very much in the Dutch taste, for the illustration is after a print with a legend reading “L’oiseau sans cage. Prenez, belle, mon oiseau. C’est le plus doux présent que je puisse vous faire. Pour les autres oiseaux, la cage d’ordinaire est une espèce de tombeau. Mais le mien semble prendre une nouvelle vie, Lorsqu’il sera dans la cage de mon aimable Silvie.” The erotic message is as clear as can be. 38 A fine high-relief carved ebony document box Jakarta (Batavia) or Sri Lanka, late 17th century

H. 16 x W. 57.2 x D. 38 cm

The high-relief carving seen in this ebony writing box is characteristic of the However, as a result of many local wars and famines on the Coromandel decoration found in ebony cabinets, chairs, settees, beds and boxes produced for Coast between 1630 and 1680, large numbers of Tamil artisans came, the Dutch at the end of the 17th century on the Coromandel enslaved, to Batavia (or Sri Lanka) where this box was probably made. The Coast, Sri Lanka, and in Jakarta (Batavia). This type of enslaved workmen, however, got paid, albeit little, but often enough carved ebony furniture was known as ‘custwerk’ to acquire freedom, which differs from the Trans-Atlantic (made on the Coromandel Coast). slave-trade, but is not so much different from the The carvers initially were Tamil present-day sweatshops in Asia. craftsmen from South-India, the Coromandel Coast. 39 An Indonesian Sono keeling or Javanese rosewood foliate cabinet on stand or The front of this cabinet is decorated with three carved swags of fruits and flowers Rankenkast coming out of cherub’s heads, a long drawer under two doors and two shelves behind the doors. Usually, this type cabinet on stand in the former Dutch East-Indies is plain, but in the Netherlands cabinets with the carvings of swags, flowers and fruits coming out of cherub’s mouths and often ending in tassels, known as ‘Rankenkasten’, were quite popular in the 17th century. In the former Dutch East-Indies, this type of carving is not common, partly because the use of glue was problematic in the tropics but also because only a Dutch carver was used to making this type of decoration. The present cabinet is one of very few known colonial ‘Rankenkasten’. There is one in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag (Titus Eliëns, ed. Wonen op de Kaap en in Batavia 1602-1795, p. 84), and another one illustrated in Uit Verre Streken, November 2018, nr. 35.

Provenance: Collection Jan Veenendaal

40 An Indonesian Djati display cabinet Chinese furniture-makers working in Batavia, late 18th century, dated 1799

H. 201.5 x W. 120 x D. 53.5 cm

In the middle of the pierced worked cresting an openwork removable roundel hiding a text in Arab scripture reading: Allah la | ilaha illahi | four vertical stripes = 99 (God, there is no god but Him, 99). This is a slightly deviant reading of the first part of the Muslim confession of faith (there is no God but Him). Under the crest, two glazed doors over two drawers. The front left and right, the drawers and the apron with carvings of continuous leaf vines, standing on cabriole leg, the right side of the cabinet has a brand mark of Chinese characters.

Jakarta (Batavia), late 17th century We are grateful to Willem van der Molen for his translation of the H. 173 x W. 133 x D. 51 cm Arabic text. 41 An important commemorating Indonesian carved Sawo wood box containing a luxurious photo album Java, Japara, circa 1917

W. 58.5 x D. 41.5 x H. 17 cm

Japara, on the north-coast of Java, is famous for its woodcarving, since at least the 15th century. The lid of the box is decorated with the wajang of Ardjoena, one of the five Pandawa brothers from the Mahabharata, on both sides of the tree of life Kekajon. The inside of the lid has a cut buffalo hide decoration of Garuda, the mythical mount of Vishnu, surrounded by four Naga heads with wide-open jaws. The inside of the box is covered with Batik, and the box contains an album, the cover made of snake-skin with an engraved metal plaque Souvenir Kadaster 1912-1917 and land- surveying equipment. The two title pages of the album read: “Aan den Hoogedelgestrengen Heer L.C.F. Polderman, Chef van den Kadastralen Dienst in Nederlandsch Indie, wordt dit Album bij zijn aftreden eerbiedig aangeboden door het Europeesch en Inlandsch personeel bij dien tak van dienst.” Inside the album twenty-one photos regarding the land registry in Indonesia in the early 20th century. 42 Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp (1874-1950) Collection of eight works

Nieuwenkamp was born and raised in Amsterdam where his father had a shipping company with ships sailing to Indonesia - hearing the stories of the returning captains evoked in the young Nieuwenkamp an obsession for distant lands and adventure. After a failed attempt by his father to have his son make a career in his shipping business, Nieuwenkamp attended the Academy for Decorative Art in Amsterdam. However, within one year he left to go his own way. He was an autodidact and a great experimenter with new techniques, particularly in the art of etching. Nieuwenkamp was a very focused man with the discipline of a scientist tempered by the sensitivity of an artist, a lust for adventure, a natural appreciation for ethnic arts and an enormous ambition to tread new paths. In 1898 he visited Indonesia for the first time and on his second visit in 1903-1904 he went on to Bali. He was the first foreign artist to fall in love with Bali and the Balinese with passion. Having secured agreements with several museums in the Netherlands to obtain Balinese art and artefacts for their collections, Nieuwenkamp immediately started to purchase and order a wide range of ethnographic art and objects from local artists and artisans. Through his drawings and books, he gave an excellent impression of Balinese art and culture at that time. Since 1854 North-Bali was more or less occupied by the Dutch, but South-Bali in 1904, when Nieuwenkamp visited it, was still independent. Polderman (1863-1938) already in 1881 joined the land registry in the Nieuwenkamp would be one of the last Westerners to experience a glorious Netherlands where he made a good career and was appointed head of the medieval society in its final days. service in Indonesia in 1912 till his pension in 1917. During his second visit to Bali in 1906 the Dutch government decided to end A similar Japara-carved box with a photo album inside, containing 48 the independence of South-Bali and Nieuwenkamp was invited by Governor- portraits of regents of Java and Madura, was presented as a gift by the regent General Van Heutz to accompany the Dutch invasion force. By contemporary of Garut, R.A.A. Wiratanudatar to Queen Wilhelmina on her 24th birthday European standards, the Balinese were barbarous, pagan and primitive, in 1904 (See: Rita Wassing-Visser, Koninklijke Geschenken uit Indonesië, particularly with widows throwing themselves in the flames of the funeral Historische banden met het Huis Oranje-Nassau (1600-1938), Waanders pyre of their deceased husbands. But Nieuwenkamp was a singular man who Zwolle, 1995, pp. 120-123). saw in their society the beauty and soul that had been lost in his own. On September 20th, 1906 in Denpasar, the capital of South-Bali fell to the Dutch military forces. Official military briefings praised the victory which was reported with nationalistic pride on the front pages of all Dutch newspapers. As Nieuwenkamp had witnessed, the truth was far from glorious. As if in a trance the Balinese, men women and children, dressed in their finest silks and jewellery, and armed with their ancient bejewelled keris, the Raja himself mounted atop a golden palanquin, rushed forward, the men killing their wives and children and the Dutch machinegun fire doing the rest. The once- powerful and magnificent court of Denpasar was left in ashes and as many as two thousand Balinese dead. This mass-suicide is also known as Puputan and is still not represented well in Dutch history books and lessons. The Dutch suffered four casualties. Nieuwenkamp made drawings and saved as many beautiful architectural elements and artefacts from the rubble as he could, most of it now in the A big Banyan tree in Sawan, collection of the Museum of World Cultures in Leiden. Bali, 1906 In 1914 Nieuwenkamp journeyed to Sri Lanka and British India. In 1917-1918, Signed with initials lower right 1925 and 1937 to Indonesia and Bali again, always investigating hints and and with location and dated stories from every source imaginable and making sketches he later worked lower left, Sawan, 9 aug. 1906 into finished drawings and prints for his books. Pencil on paper, laid down on Provenance: all works come from the estate of the artist thin cardboard 23 x 18.8 cm House temple in Singaradja, 1904 Signed with initials upper centre and described with location and date, lower centre (vaguely in pencil 11 oct.). Temple of Besakih, Pencil, ink and watercolour on paper, laid down on thin cardboard Karangasem, Bali circa 1907 18 x 18 cm Signed lower right

Literature: Pencil and watercolour on Ernst Braches and J.F. Heijbroek, W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp. Bouwstoffen, toegepaste grafiek en paper, laid down on thin illustraties, Amsterdam 2016, p.108, 263, 307, 322 (ill.). cardboard W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, Zwerftochten op Bali, Edam 1922 p. 44 (ill.). 19.8 x 25.5 cm W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, Zwerftochten op Bali, Edam 1910 p. 80 (ill.). W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, Bali en Lombok, Edam 1910 p. 30 (ill.). W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, Schetsen van Bali en Lombok I, de woning der Baliërs, Magazine: Eigen Haard, 7 jan. 1905, p.12-16 (ill.).

Literature: Ernst Braches and J.F. Heijbroek, W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp. Bouwstoffen, toegepaste grafiek en illustraties, Amsterdam 2016, p.295, 314, 336 (ill.). Bruce W. Carpenter, W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp - First European Artist in Bali, Abcoude 1997, p. 167 (ill.). Besakih Temple, Forest in Den Pasar, 1937 (a Sema or pyre place near Den Pasar. In the background Karagasem 1918 a pyre is burning) Signed with initials Signed with the artist initials, dated and with title lower middle and right, W.O.J.N., and dated lower Den Pasar, 6-7-febr. 1937 left, inscribed with location lower right Pencil, ink and black chalk on paper 56.6 x 45.5 cm Charcoal on paper, 26.4 x 32 cm Literature: Cary Venselaar, W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp. Alles voor de Kunst, Volendam, 2019, p. 759 (ill.).

Houses in Matoer, Sumatra, 1925 Signed with initials and dated upper centre, W.O.J.N. 30-4-25

Pencil on paper 34 x 28.8 cm

Literature: 43 Ernst Braches and J.F. Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp (1874-1950) Heijbroek, W.O.J. Fruit carriers, Bali 1927 Nieuwenkamp. Bouwstoffen, Both signed in pencil and with title on the reverse. toegepaste grafiek en illustraties, Amsterdam 2016, p. 244. Oil on board, 26 x 19.5 cm Bruce W. Carpenter, W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp. First Literature: European Artist in Bali, J.F.K. Kits Nieuwenkamp, W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp (1874-1950) gezien door tijdgenoten, Abcoude 1997, p. 98. Amersfoort 1997, p. 94 (ill.)

44 Willem Jan Pieter van der Does (1889-1966) Signed bottom right W.v.d.Does

Oil on canvas, 51.4 x 61.5 cm

Willem van der Does was born in Rotterdam on the 20th of April 1889, as a son of a sea commander working in Indonesia. Since his childhood, he was destined by his family to become an artist. He studied at the Rotterdam Academy of Arts, and 1918 he travelled to Indonesia as a civil servant to survey the country. In this function, he travelled all over the archipelago. Van der Does was also the first Dutchman to have travelled to Antarctica, in 1923-1924. During his travels to Antarctica, he made about 144 sketches for his book ‘Storm, IJs en Walvisschen’ describing his expedition to Antarctica. With his paintings, Van der Does participated in several group-exhibitions in Jakarta (Batavia), Medan, Bandung and Surabaya between 1918 and 1938. Together with the painter Gerard Pieter Adolfs he formed the impressionist movement in the former Dutch East-Indies. Van der Does his work had been presented to King Leopold III of Belgium and Queen Astrid of Sweden, and on the occasion of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands her 50th birthday, the former Dutch East Indies presented a work by Van der Does to the Queen as an official gift from the government. Many of his works were also given to various government officials and other essential persons by the former Dutch East-Indies government at the time. This owed him the title ‘The Royal Painter from the Indies’. After the war, in 1946 he returned to the Netherlands, where he settled, first in Schiedam and later retired to Zeist, where he died in 1966. He was a painter, illustrator and draughtsman of harbour scenes, city views and landscapes in an authentic impressionistic style. 45 46 A fine Jelutong wood Dayak Kliau or shield A fine Balinese Suarwood (Albizia saman) Indonesia, Borneo, Kalimantan, 1st half 19th sculpture depicting a scene from the Ramayana century Gianyar, 1970-1980

H. 126 x W. 36 cm H. 48.5 cm

The kliau or klebit is the most popular shield amongst the Dayak of Kalimantan. Together with its massive grip, it is usually carved from a single piece of soft, light jelutong wood. The The sculpture grip is located lengthwise in the centre of the depicts a scene shield, which is slightly curved both in width from the Ramayana. and lengthwise. It is usually strengthened in While flying to width with rattan strips to prevent the wood Alengka (Sri Lanka) from splitting when struck by a sword. The to inform Sita, the front of the shield, with traces of human hair, kidnapped wife of is decorated in various colours Rama, that her husband showing a stylised boar-like is coming to save her, creature or udo with large Hanoman, the white eyes and teeth, to frighten monkey is hit by an arrow the opponent. The back is from the magical weapen decorated with god-like Nagapasa that turns into a dogs, aso, to encourage naga dragon. Hanoman the fighter. This wrestles and finally particular shield has a defeats the naga. The very deep brown patina Nagapasa weapon is and traces of usage in owned by Indrajit, the battle. son of the evil sorcerer Fighting and war was an king Rawana, who essential part of Dayak kidnapped Sita. culture, who often, driven The polished baroque by belief in curses, marched style carving belongs to for war against a neighbouring the greater Mas School tribe. The Dayak believed that the which extends south to paintings on the shields not only Guwang and up towards frightened their opponent but actually the Gianyar highlands, harmed them. Hair of a fallen opponent became very popular in was stuck to the shield to give it extra power. When the 1980s. the shield broke, as the present one, it was hung in the longhouse as decoration. We are grateful to Bruce Carpenter for his Provenance: Dutch private collection since the 1940s assistance in writing this We are grateful to Mr. P. van Drumpt for is assistance in writing this catalogue entry. catalogue entry 47 48 A taxidermy case with Raggiana’s bird of paradise (Paradiseae raggiana) An extremely rare Papua wood sculpture of a Korwar with trade label to the underside reading ‘The Jungle, Rowland Ward’ Papua New Guinea, Cendrawasih Bay, Wandammen, early 19th century London, c. 1900-1910 H. 24 x Diam. 18 cm With a collector’s label, centre bottom reading: No. 153, Bird of Paradise (Paradise Raggiana). The Peter Farrington Collection, Wilmslow Cheshire.

H. 69.5 x W. 56 x D. 31 cm

The splendid male bird with wings outstretched as if flying, is situated above a faux-tree stump, amidst a natural setting of ferns, grasses and rocks within a ebonised framed glass case resting on bun feet. The Raggiana bird of paradise is also known as Count Raggi’s bird of paradise and is distributed widely in southern and north-eastern New Guinea where its local name is Kumul and is also known as Cenderawasih. Count Luigi Maria D’Albertis (1841-1901), a rather notorious Italian naturalist and explorer who in 1875 charted the Fly river in what is now known as Papua New Guinea, requested the epithet “raggiana” to be added to the name of the bird of paradise, to commemorate his friend the marquis Francis Raggi of Genoa. The raggiana is the national bird of Papua New Guinea and in 1971 this species of the genus Paradisaea, was made the national symbol and displayed on the national flag. ‘Kumuls’ (bird-of- Finely carved in the early style, the figure seated on a circular base, with paradise in Tok Pisin) elongated head, detailed facial expression with blackened eyebrows, lashes, is also the nickname mustache and teeth, the ears and forehead pierced, all areas facing upwards of the country’s with a deep black-brown patina of usage and insect droppings. national rugbyteam. With a hand-written label to the bottom stating Korwar Patoeng Nenek- Mojang Orang Papua. Inscribed Biak Papua on the forehead and indistinctly inscribed in French on the back of the head. This rare type of Korwar belongs to the earliest pieces known to exist, as 50 stated in Dr. Oskar Nuoffer, Ahnenfiguren von der Geelvinkbai, Hollandisch A fine Papua wood sculpture of a Korwar Neuguinea, Leipzig 1908 (ill. 5 & 6) and in De Clercq & Schmeltz, North West Irian Jaya, Vogelkop area, coastal Cenderawasih Bay, early 20th Etnographische beschrijving van de west en noordkust van Nederlands New century Guinea, 1893 (ill. 1 & 7). For a comparable Korwar probably by the same carver, from the collection of The seated Korwar is holding an openwork “shield” in front of him, with a the Museum of World Cultures in Rotterdam, see: R. Corbey, Northwest New dark brown soft gloss patina. Guinea Ritual Art according to missionary sources, Leiden 2019 (ill. 122). For H. 34 cm further reading and more comparable Korwar, see beforementioned book pp. 148-155 and Van Baaren, Korwars and korwarstyle, 1968 (ill. 32, 33 & 48). Starrenburg published a booklet about his mission on Roon and described how he got the Korwar: The patina and smooth surface of the Korwar as a result of handling over a “Around the hut, there were skulls and small long period of time acknowledges the fact that this Korwar dates from the ancestor sculptures (called Korwar). As the early 19th century. owners wanted to become Christians, I could Most Korwar figures were made for the families of sick or deceased males, take everything, but I wasn’t allowed to take and occasionally females, during illness or immediately following their death. them away through the front door, so a hole During the carving, chants were sung to assure that the spirit power of the was made in the side of the hut. Onboard of ancestor would enter into the figure. The figures then served as intermediaries my little boat, a storm came up and I nearly between the living and the dead. Their advice was sought through the actions lost everything. The Papua attributed this of a shaman who went into a trance and was then able to pass on the words happening to the power of the spirits, but I of the spirit to the living descendants. came home with everything safely anyway!” Starrenburg is also referred to as being on Provenance: by repute bought by a pioneer of Royal Dutch Shell (Multinational Oil Roon around 1910 in the famous book and Gas Company) in a shop in Jakarta in the early 20th century, who later lived in a ‘Kruis en Korwar’ by Drs. F.C. Kamma. stately home along the river Vecht, thence by descent. He is known to have collected many Korwar at the time, of which this one We are grateful to Mr. Peter van Drumpt for is assistance in writing he held personally. this catalogue entry

Provenance: From the collection of Missionary D.B. Starrenburg, working in the Geelvink Bay area, on the peninsula 49 of Roon, from 1906 till 1938 and thence A wood, abalone and albatross-bone Maori pa kawahai fishing lure by descent to the last owner in December New-Zealand, 19th century 2019.

L. 10 cm Literature: D.B. Starrenburg, Kerk der Hope: bijdrage tot kennis der Nieuw- Fishing lures like these were not only used for fishing, but also as Guinea Zending, Nederlandsch currency and often of great value to the Maori. This particular Jongelings-Verbond, Amsterdam, 1940. one has old restorations probably done by a Maori, proving that items like these were much appreciated. We are grateful to Mr. Peter van Drumpt for is assistance in writing this catalogue entry n a p Ja & China 51 52 An early Chinese wood sculpture A rare Chinese export porcelain famille rose ‘Danish East-India Trading of a Portuguese or Spanish Jesuit Company’ saucer Possibly Macao, 17th/early 18th Circa 1720-1730 century, indistinctly inscribed at the front of the base Decorated in various overglaze enamels with a roundel enclosing a mirror- monogram of the ‘D.O.C.’, Danske Ostindke Company, within a rocaille H. 22.6 cm mantling and below a floral wreath, the rim with a border of continuous vines and flowers. The figure, carved in East-Asian walnut with a deep-brown aged patina, seems Diam. 11.6 cm to represent a Jesuit monk with long curly hair, wearing a long coat over The mirror monogram on this saucer is historically highly interesting. Identical trousers and kneeling on a footstool. monograms can be found on Danish coins (Kronet) from 1699-1730, made Sculptures like the present one were during the reign of the Danish/Norwegian King Frederick IV (1671-1730). probably made for domestic devotion The Danske Ostindke Company or Danish East India Company refers to by Westerners or Chinese converted to two separate Danish-Norwegian chartered companies. The first Company Catholicism. operated between 1616 and 1650. The second Company existed between 1670 and 1729; however, in 1730 it was re-founded as the Asiatic Company. In 1618 it took the Admiral Gjedde two years to reach Ceylon, where he briefly occupied the colossal Konesawaram Temple before being expelled by the Portuguese. After that, the Danes settled in Tranquebar, where they obtained permission to trade with the Tangore Kingdom, established Dansborg and installed the first Opperhoved Captain Crappe. Between 1624 and 1636, trade extended to Indonesia as well, but subsequent wars in Europe ruined the Company. In 1670, a second Danish East India Company was established and trade between Denmark, Norway and Tranquebar resumed. Several new outposts were established, governed from Tranquebar: Oddeway Torre on the Malabar Coast in 1696, and Denmarksnagore at Gondalpara, southeast of Chanderagore in 1698. The settlement with the Nayak was confirmed, and Tranquebar was permitted to expand to include three neighbouring villages. Denmark sent missionaries to India, which was vehemently opposed by the local rulers. Their pressure, economic and in battle caused trade to stagnate. Above all, the Norwegian King forced the DOC to loan him money which he failed to repay, forcing the Company into liquidation and bankruptcy. The DOC never got near as large as the Dutch VOC, due to poor economic choices and the strong urge to spread Christianity above a healthy trade-relationship with local authorities. 53 54 A pair of miniature reverse-glass A Chinese refined reticulated tortoise-shell export basket with lid paintings of ladies in a landscape, Canton, late 18th/early 19th century in original maple wood frames Canton, circa 1780 Both the lid and the basket divided in to six panels with openwork designs depicting figures in landscapes, on top of the lid a round knob with an H. 4,5 x W. 6.5 cm (painting) openworked silver band. H. 11.5 x W. 13.5 cm (including L. 17.5 x W. 11.7 x H. 11.2 cm (including lid) frame) For similar shaped and carved baskets in ivory see Uit Verre Streken, June In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there arose a great demand for 2019, no. 44 and 45. The same type of basket was also made in silver filigree, Chinese reverse-glass paintings in the West, mainly in England. Initially, the see, Uit Verre Streken, December 2013 and M. Menshikova, Silver wonders paintings were mostly of Chinese landscapes with Chinese figures, like the from the East, Filigree of the Tsars, the Hermitage Collection in Petersburg. two small present paintings. Later, after about 1785, exact copies of European Openwork baskets seem to have been a popular item of export art from or American prints were ordered by Western clients, as reverse-glass paintings Canton for foreigners visiting China. in China. 55 56 A Sawasa-ware export silver and gold tobacco box An extremely rare Japanese export lacquer jewellery casket, possibly by the Japan, Nagasaki, 17th century Kichibei-studio Japan, 1630-1640 L. 11.3 x W. 4.7 x W. 3.3 cm Weight 169 grams Wood (sugi), Asian Rhus vernicifluüm lacquer, gold- and silver-powder, inlays in gold, silver, tin, coral and jade, silver and brass fittings.

H. 8.5 x W. 25.5 x D. 18 cm

This richly decorated jewellery casket with a concave lid belongs to a period in Japanese export lacquer coined the transitional phase. After the Portuguese were banned from Japan and the Dutch became the only Westerners allowed to trade in Japan. Japanese lacquer craftsmen slowly shifted their style from the well-documented Namban-style towards the so-called Koumou-style in

This is probably the work of Chinese silversmiths working in Nagasaki. Chinese and Japanese metalworkers in Nagasaki made objects following similar designs and manufacturing techniques but mostly in different materials; the Chinese using silver and the Japanese an alloy of copper, gold, silver, arsenic and antimony, known as shakudo (or sawasa as known in Batavia by the Dutch). The present silver box has apparent similarities with shakudo tobacco boxes. Usually, the decoration in these cast and chiselled utilitarian boxes is Chinese, showing trees, flowers, animals, birds, insects and Chinese temples with their flags. The present box, however, has a unique Western design with grapevines and grape bunches all around, and peonies in the centre of the bottom. Grapes are the symbol of the Last Supper and therefore the blood of Jesus Christ. In 17th century Japan, however this symbol, if recognised as Christian, was forbidden, as Christianity was banned in Japan. Peonies symbolise romance and prosperity and are regarded as an omen of good fortune and happy marriage. The inside of the box is gilded. The top of the box is provided with a gold plate depicting three Japanese ladies attending a tea ceremony in the pleasure quarters for which Nagasaki was renowned. One of the ladies is playing the Shamisan. A similar tea ceremony is depicted on an early shakudo, black and gold tobacco box from circa 1650-60 (John Hawkins, Chinese silversmiths working in Nagasaki between 1660 and 1800, The Journal of the Silver Society nr. 33, p. 139-158).

Provenance: Michael Lindörfer, a violin maker in Weimar. On a photograph dated 01- 02-1969, Lindörfer is shown presenting a violin to David Oistrach. that one could imagine that one of Kick’s works travelled to Japan in order to serve as a model for this particular type of casket. As such, there can be little doubt that this casket served as a bridal chest in accordance with its European example. The jewellery casket can be placed within a small group of similarly proportioned items with concave lids. We find famous examples featuring ivory pilasters in the collections of the V&A (inv. 628-1868), the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum (inv. H-4396), as well as several other known examples in private collections in Germany and the UK. When we study the rather uncommon decorative borders along the rims of the casket, we find that the ornaments in gold and red lacquer are somewhat similar to those in a large coffer, dated c. 1650, and signed by Saji Kichibei, in the Groninger Museum (inv. 1988-24). Although definitely simpler in terms of execution than the Groningen coffer, the decorations in maki-e and the extremely rare use of precious inlays might even indicate an origin from the same studio. Take a look for example, at the small silver inlays on the prune trees and the polished silver chrysanthemum flowers (migaki-kiku) on the lids order to satisfy the demand of their new ‘redhaired’ clientele. This meant of both the jewellery casket and the Kichibei coffer. Also similar is the subtle abandoning the use of geometric borders with generous use of mother-of- use of red lacquer for drawing flowers; a feature which is almost entirely pearl inlay in favour of a more sober, picturesque style of paintings on a abandoned when the picturesque style reaches full maturity. Our casket even solemn black background. As seen in this remarkable casket, the decorations seems eager to trump the coffer by having a single inlay in what appears to be still show remnants of the decorative borders and cartouches favoured by the solid gold. Portuguese, whilst simultaneously showing a strong development towards the Whether or not the link to Kichibei can be proven, the jewellery casket’s new fashion that came to dominate Japanese export lacquer after the 1650s. unusual decorations with precious inlays tell us a story; the story of a The lacquer has been applied over a wooden core of sugi wood (Cryptomeria wedding. Underneath the solid silver lock entrance with chrysanthemum- japonica) and is finished in both black lacquer surfaces and areas sprinkled shaped nail heads, our eye is drawn to a scene with a male and female with gold flakes known asnashiji. Each individual facet of both the casket mandarin duck who appears in the midst of a mating ritual. When opening and the lid is further embellished with drawings in low relief hira-maki-e, the lid of the casket, we find a mirror flanked on either side by stalks of surrounded by silver cartouches and a frame of geometric banding in gold bamboo. These are yet another purely Asian symbol for marriage, in which and red lacquer. the resilient, unyielding bamboo represents an unbreakable bond in the hardest of storms. A final symbol for marriage can be found on the front of the One side of the box slides upwards to reveal a secret drawer destined for hidden drawer behind the sliding panel, in which a pair of fluttering butterflies (love)letters. Coincidentally, a virtually identical construction can be found complete the total of three wishes for a happy marriage. in the lacquer caskets by Amsterdam’s earliest known lacquer artist Willem Kick, (Collection Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, inv. BK-KOG-1364) to which this For further reading: www.zebregsroell.com/japanese-namban-jewellery-casket item shows remarkable kinship in terms of size and proportion. So much so, We are grateful to Dave van Gompel for his assistance in writing this catalogue entry. of Amsterdam in 1743 ordered a miniature black lacquered ivory tripod table with gold chinoiserie decoration by Jurriaan Buttner (Monika Kopplin, European Lacquer, 2010, p. 56). Other Japanned dollhouse miniatures are known, but probably all made and decorated in Europe. Apparently Japanese-style pieces were in vogue with owners of dollhouses. Already early in the 17th century dollhouse miniature Chinese porcelain and other curiosities, also from Japan, were brought to the Netherlands, mostly through personal contacts. The VOC however, started trading in miniatures as well, and in 1638 remarks on poppeschoteltgen and poppeschaeltgen can be found in letters by officials (Jet Pijzel-Dommisse, Het Hollandse pronkpoppenhuis, Rijksmuseum 2000, pg 35-36). Also, in a in 1637 pirated Portuguese ship, a great variety of miniatures and poppegoet was found. In VOC-letters from the 1660s, orders for Japanese lacquer cabinets can be found, that needed to be filled with “cleyn Japans porceleyn, cleijne doosgens (small boxes), coffertjen (small coffers) en andere curieusiteyten en poppegoet.” Early miniatures like the one present, could have been placed in cabinets of curiosities or dollhouses alike, but up until now it seems that none have survived, making this chest unique.

57 A unique and exceptional Japanese miniature or dollhouse export lacquered chest Kyoto, circa 1620-1640

The chest of rectangular shape with a domed lid, decorated in Transition-style, in gold hiramaki-e on a black background within reserved lobed cartouches decorated with landscapes animated with birds and rabbits, on a shagreen or samegawa background. The borders are decorated with geometric friezes, the box with gilt-copper mounts, the interior decorated in red lacquer.

H. 9.2 x W. 14.5 x D. 7.2 cm

This miniature is of exceptional quality and a perfect copy of the famous large size Transition-style coffers. It was most likely ordered by a Dutch lady for her dollhouse (poppenhuis), like the famous Petronella Oortman (1656- 1716) doll-house, which is now one of the highlights in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, or Petronella Oortmans-de la Court’s (1624-1707) dollhouse in the collection of the Centraal Museum Utrecht. Sara Rothé 58 Japanese Namban lacquer transition-style coffer with two drawers Kyoto/Nagasaki, circa 1650

The cartouches with gilt and red decorations of leaves, ferns, grasses, raised silver flowers and a hare, on a wood grain, mokume, ground, with engraved red copper mounts, on hinoki (cypress) wood base.

L. 38.8 x W. 15.6 x H. 21.3 cm

A similar, larger, mokume ground coffer, signed Saji Kichibei fude is in the collection of the Groninger Museum (inv. 1988-24). ‘Kisibe’ is mentioned (‘the best craftsman’) in VOC-documents of 1653 (Japanese Export Lacquer, 1580- 1850, Oliver Impey & Christiaan Jörg, Hotei Publishing, Amsterdam, 2005, pp. 32-33). The woodgrain, mokume, background is very unusual.

59 A fine Japanese export black and gold lacquered Pictorial-style dish Nagasaki or Kyoto, 1680-1720

The dish with wide flat rim of Keaki wood (Zelkova species) in black lacquer with decoration in hiramaki-e and takamaki-e, the rim decorated with raised lacquer flowers in gold, red and silver, in the well a cockerel and hen. Restored and added underneath a wooden, black painted ring in order to fix the dish to a standard.

Diam. 36.4 cm

The form of this dish probably derives from a European pewter dish. Initially, lacquerware was ordered by the VOC, but already in the mid-17th century much was privately ordered and after the mid-18th century the VOC stopped altogether ordering lacquerware, while the private trade went on. A similar dish, in the collection of the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (inv. MPP 1911-17138), is illustrated in Japanese Export Lacquer 1580-1850, Olivier Impey & Christiaan Jörg, Amsterdam 2005, ill. 425. 60 A fine Japanese lacquer cabinet with gilt-copper mounts for the European market Edo period, late 17th century

The rectangular cabinet with two hinged doors opening to reveal ten various sized drawers, decorated on the doors with a teapot and a potted shrub in gold, silver and red hiramaki-e, takamaki-e, hirame and nashiji, the sides with birds perched on trees, on a black ground, with the inside of the door with sprinkled gold, nashiji and silver inlaid flower-petals, the drawer fronts decorated with flowers, trees and small pavilions in rocky landscapes (sansui), in gold hiramaki-e and takamaki-e.

H. 69.3 x W. 91 x D. 57 cm

Provenance: - Sotheby’s New York, October 20. 1984, lot 10 - Collection of the Committee to Furnish The President’s House, Endowment Association, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia Lacquerware originated in China and accordingly, the very first East-Asian - Sotheby’s New York, 21 April 1989 lacquer to arrive in Europe was Chinese lacquer. After lacquer was introduced - Private collection, the Netherlands in Japan in the 6th century or earlier, it became part and parcel of Japanese culture and the Japanese eventually surpassed the lacquer of their Chinese and Korean teachers in quality and refinement. The Portuguese arrived in Japan in the early 16th century, recognizing the superior quality of Japanese lacquer, and were the first foreigners to order Japanese lacquer work to their taste at the end of the century. This Namban (for the Barbarians) lacquer is characterized by the use of gold and silver powder, together with mother-of- pearl inlays, showing dense vine patterns, covering the whole surface of the often typical Portuguese formed objects. After the Portuguese were banned from Japan in 1639, because of their proselytising, the Dutch were the only Europeans allowed to trade in Japan. The style of lacquer ordered by the Dutch changed to a pictorial style without the use of mother-of-pearl and eventually with sparce decorations on a dominant black ground, mainly on two-door cabinets and coffers; very much in line with their Calvinist belief and fashion. The present cabinet is a very luxurious, expensive object and initially only the VOC could invest the sums required to buy this type of lacquered cabinets. However, in 1693 the VOC had to economise and abruptly ceased to buy lacquer. Private traders took over, but they rarely could afford large pieces and reverted to smaller objects. Larger pieces, such as the present cabinet eventually grew out of fashion and were often cut down to be used in European furniture. Queen Mary II (1662-1694) appears to have earned herself rather a reputation for such brutal treatment. In 1685 her advisor Constantijn Huygens reprimanded her for “having sawed, divorced, cut and slit asunder and reduced to a heap of splinters.... a gilt painted lacquer cabinet. 61 This late Georgian period, Chippendale or Hepplewhite style, also known as A rare Japanese export lacquered Federal-style side-table for the American Federal style, side table, is not what the Dutch would have ordered in Japan, market but it is certainly something an American buyer would order. The provenance Nagasaki or Kyoto, 1799-1803 of the present table is an American collection, and undoubtedly it came straight to the United States from Japan around 1800. The Chippendale/Hepplewhite style side-table, black lacquered and In 1795 the French-orientated Batavian Republic was established and decorated in silver and mother-of-pearl, with scattered flower sprays, the top Stadholder Willem V escaped to London, which resulted in war between with a rectangular depiction of four people in a landscape with flowering Holland and England. In 1799 the Netherlands were occupied by the French trees, four houses and the sea with sailing ships in the distance. and became part of the Napoleonic Empire. In 1814, when the Netherlands were liberated, and the son of the old Stadholder returned as King Willem I H. 84.7 x W. 92.4 x D. 48.5 cm from exile in England, the Netherlands ceased to be at war with England. Between 1796 and 1816 trade between Batavia and Japan was minimal Provenance: Private collection, United States because Dutch ships were intercepted at sea by the British navy. To maintain a minimal trade with Japan the Dutch chartered American ships, belonging to a neutral country, to maintain the annual voyage between Batavia and Deshima which had to lower the American and rise the Dutch flag upon arrival in Nagasaki Bay. In 1797 and 1798 the Eliza from New York, captained by William Robert Steward sailed from Batavia to Nagasaki under the Dutch flag. However, theEliza never returned to New York. In 1797 Eliza’s cargo was dropped in Batavia and in 1798 the Eliza disappeared after leaving Nagasaki. In 1799 the Franklin, under captain James Devereux from Boston, sailed to Japan; in 1800 the Massachusetts also from Boston, under captain William V. Hutchings, followed by the Margaret from Salem in 1801 under captain Samual Gardner Derby. In 1802, the Samuel Smith under captain G. Stiles was chartered, and in 1803 the Rebecca from Baltimore under captain James Deal. In 1800 the Massachusetts brought Willem Waardenaar to Deshima as Opperhoofd and in 1803 his replacement, Hendrik Doeff arrived aboard the Rebecca. Doeff had to stay in Deshima till 1817 because no more ships arrived. Between 1811 and 1816 Java was occupied by the English, and all traffic between Batavia and Deshima ceased, except for two failed attempts in 1813 and 1814 by Raffles, as Lieutenant-Governor of Java, to take possession of the Dutch factory at Deshima. Some of the American captains and officers conducted their own private trade in Japanese lacquer work. Both captain James Devereux of the Franklin and captain Samuel Garder Derby of the Margaret, sailing to Japan in 1799 and 1801 respectively, well documented their private trade of Japanese lacquer, but other American captains and officers undoubtedly also acquired lacquerware while in Deshima. Devereux established his own private trade in exclusive Japanese lacquered furniture in Salem, selling in the United States and abroad. After his death, his son donated the rest of his collection to the Peabody Essex Museum which also acquired many pieces from captain Derby’s collection. Particularly Devereux opened up a new market for Japanese lacquered furniture after models or drawings of English/American style furniture that would be produced in Japan in the first half of the 19th century. However, pieces in this pure Federal-style rarely appear at the market.

63 A Japanese Cypresswood or hirohi ‘Walsh, Hall & Co, Yokohama’ tea chest Yokohama, 1862-1897, with inscription reading: Choisest Natural Leaf Yamashiro Tea, Packed by Walsh, Hall & Co, Yokohama.

H. 53.5 x W. 61.5 x D. 41.5 cm

The chest gold, silver and red lacquered on a black lacquer ground, the top decorated with an eagle sitting on a branch, looking at a small escaping bird, the front with a pheasant under a chestnut, one side with a cockerel amongst foliage, the back decorated with an argus pheasant-like bird amongst foliage. Walsh, Hall & Co. was a very successful commission trading-house in Yokohama, known as Ami-ichi (American No. 1), the first American firm to reach Yokohama in 1859. The firm was established by John Greer Walsh, and Thomas Walsh, joined by Francis (or Frank) Hall in 1861, and traded mainly in tea and silk. A colour woodblock-print by Hiroshige II (1826-1869) dating from circa 1861 titled Yokohama ijinkan no zu, shows an exceptionally faithful 62 visual record of the Walsh, Hall & Company’s compound located at lot A fine Japanese export red lacquer box with Masonic symbols Kyoto/Nagasaki, 1800-1820

Red lacquer decorated with scattered flowers and flying birds with long tails in gold, with the Masonic emblem designed in mother-of-pearl inlaid on a black lacquer ground, the lock-plate of silvered copper and with brass hinges.

W. 37.9 x D. 23.6 x H. 8.5 cm

The iconography inlaid in the centre of the lid relates to Masonic symbols specific to Scottish Rite. The Masonic design has been copied after the British ritual manual Jachin and Boaz (the two bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple), published in 1797. Many Dutch and English Company servants were members of Masonic Lodges in the East. In 1729 the first British Provincial Grand Lodge was established in Bengal, and soon two lodges followed in Batavia. Other British and Dutch lodges were established throughout British India and the Dutch East-Indies in the second half of the 18th and in the 19th century.

The dates suggest that the box may have been commissioned by James Lindsay 24th Earl of Crawford (1783-1869). Whilst it is not known whether he was a Mason, his father was Grand Master Mason of the Grand Lodge of Scotland from 1780-1782, and it can only be presumed James was a Mason as well. The symbols in general indicate a high-ranking in the Grand Lodge of Scotland and the box may have been a very precious gift to the Earl.

Provenance: The Earls of Crawford and Balcarres, Scotland number two on the Bund, the Westerner’s term for the embankment along the honour the educational work of his father and brother Edward. When it was harbour’s edge. The company’s early arrival in Yokohama secured its highly completed in 1903, the New York Tribune called it “one of the finest gifts ever desirable location near the customhouse and one of the two stone piers. made to a Connecticut town.’’ Under Frank Hall’s leadership the business flourished. Hall, the sixth son in Hall also was a world traveller, for at the time of his death on August 26, a family of sixteen children was born in Ellington Connecticut in 1822. Hall 1902, the Elmira paper noted in his obituary, that “next to Bayard Taylor, he graduated in 1838 from the Ellington School, founded in 1829 by his father, was the greatest American traveller, Greenland and Iceland being the only John Hall (1783-1847), a Yale graduate. The financial panic of 1837 made it two countries he had not visited”. Hall’s massive and remarkable journal impossible for him to attend Yale, so he took up a career as teacher but soon was only published in 1992 (F.G. Notehelfer, Japan through American Eyes: gave up and moved to Elmira, New York, where with some financial help The Journal of Francis Hall, Kanagawa and Yokohama, 1859-1866. Princeton of two of his brothers, he opened the town’s first bookstore. Hall became University Press). a successful bookdealer and his shop became the meeting place for local The Walsh brothers had originally gone to China. John Greer Walsh came intellectuals and writers. In 1846 he married Sarah Covell, but unfortunately, to Nagasaki in 1859 where he served as American Consul until mid 1860s. she died rather quickly in 1848. Troubled by his wife’s death, Hall thought Walsh and Co’s agent in Kanawaga-Yokohama was the plant-hunter George of leaving Elmira, but could not find a buyer for his bookstore. Finally, in R. Hall, who had been a doctor in China and came to Yokohama to trade in 1859 he sold his store to two of his brothers and decided to join three Dutch 1859 when the Harris Treaty first opened the port. It was George Hall (not Reformed Missionaries on a trip to Japan as correspondent for Horace related to Francis Hall) who insisted on Yokohama as the site for Walsh & Greely’s Tribune. Probably through mediation by Bayard Taylor, a friend of Co and selected the plot of land, No. 2 on the Bund. Dr. Hall’s name was Frank Hall and America’s premier travel writer, who had gone to Japan with not on the firm because he did not invest his money in it. When Francis Hall the Perry expedition in 1854 and had covered it for the Tribune. joined the Walsh Brothers as a full partner with his own capital in 1862, the Hall took up residence in Kanagawa in 1859, among a mere handful of firm was renamed “Walsh, Hall & Co. For a discussion of the Walsh Brothers Westerners then residing in the new Treaty Port. The seven years Hall was to see Norman and Nancy Bertram Beecher, Fortunate Journey, Concord, Mass, be in Japan covered the most momentous period, during which the old feudal Norman Beecher, 1993. Shogunate gave way to the Meiji Restoration. Hall quickly learned Japanese and consequently not only recorded the daily life of Westerners in the treaty port in great detail, but also much of the life of the Japanese around him. He published nearly seventy articles in the Tribune and kept a detailed journal that has become a major source on life in Japan during the mid-19th century. In addition, Hall was a keen photographer and serious student of Japanese plants and a friend to other ‘plant hunters’ including Philipp Franz von Siebold, George R. Hall and Robert Fortune. Unfortunately, his collection of photographs taken in Japan has yet to be rediscovered. In 1861 Hall’s business instincts convinced him to bring some of his capital from the United States and to join the Walsh brothers in Walsh, Hall & Co. in Yokohama. In the print by Hiroshige II showing the Walsh Hall & Co. Garden in Yokohama, a shipment of George R. Hall’s plants going to the U.S. is shown. In 1866 Frank Hall returned to the United States but the firm continued under the name Walsh Hall & Co. in Yokohama until 1897 when, after the death of John Greer Walsh, the remaining interests were sold to the Mitsubishi Corporation. In 1872 Frank Hall was instrumental in sending Iwasaki Yanosuke, the man who came to head the Mitsubishi Corporation, to the exclusive (taking no more than twelve students annually) Hall Family School for Boys of his older brother Edward. After his return to Elmira, Frank Hall became a major philanthropist supporting Elmira College, the Steele Memorial Library, the Arnot-Ogden Hospital and other charities in Elmira. In 1902 he set out to build the Hall Memorial Library in Ellington Connecticut to 64 Hashimoto Gyokuransai, artist’ name Utagawa Sadahide (1807-1878/79) Gokaikõ Yokohama õezu: kan (Large illustration of the Opening of the Port of Yokohama: complete)

Signed Hashimoto Gyokuransai, Yokohama 1859

Colour woodblock print on eight sheets of paper This bird’s eye view shows the Opening of the Port of Yokohama on the H. 69 cm x W. 160 cm 2nd of June 1859, just one year after the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States of America and Japan. This treaty Born as Hashimoto Gyokuransai he is better known by his artist’s name of ended Japan’s policy of national seclusion (sakoku) and stipulated that Japan Utagawa Sadahide. He became one of the most accomplished students of should open five Treaty Ports to foreign commerce and settlement. Once Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865). He is a very well-known member of the a sleepy village with no more than ninety houses and 400 inhabitants, Utagawa school and is famous for his Yokohama-e prints of Westerners and Yokohama, one of the five Treaty Ports, emerged as the most important due to the Western enclave in Yokohama. its closeness to the capital city of Edo. The map shows the entire area of Yokohama. At anchor in the harbour can Rare first and only edition of three volumes, with blue blind-stamped stitched covers naval ships of the United States, France, Russia, Britain and the Netherlands each profusely illustrated with thirty-six images over two pages, eleven images on be seen, all the countries that signed Trade Treaties with Japan. The new one page, including three folding pages showing the whole port of Yokohama and the foreign settlements, the Yokohama Bund where the firm Walsh, Hall & Co Bund, and thirty-six pages of text. Volume one opens with a coloured frontis showing was one of the first, are located in the right section of Yokohama on the a composite of the five foreign flags of the treaty nations with the artist’s name and waterfront. Many shrines and temples are highlighted in the right part on book title in a red circle superimposed over the flags. the mainland, and Mount Fuji can be seen in the distance in the upper right-hand corner. The entire new city was surrounded by water, harbour in Woodblock print illustrated books, ink on paper front and canals at the sides and back, thus enabling the Bakufu, the Shogun H. 24.4 x W. 17.5 x D. 1.3 cm (each) government, to monitor the movements of people in and out, as they had done with the Dutch on Deshima island. The key in the lower-left edge indicates the colours used in the map, each colour representing different types of buildings or landscapes. White refers to shrines, pink to temples, blue was used for residences of foreigners, red refers to forest and villages and yellow to rivers. The artist’s vantage-point was near the town of Kanagawa on the opposite shore.

65 Hashimoto Gyokuransai, artist’ name Utagawa Sadahide (1807-1878/79) Yokohama kaikõ kenbunshi (Record of sights and sounds in the open port of Yokohama, 1862) The books contain vivid illustrations and detailed anecdotes concerning the customs of the first foreigners in Yokohama, as seen through Japanese eyes. The activities of American, British, Dutch, French, Russian and Chinese are recorded in much detail by Sadahide who was a keen observers of foreigners in Yokohama; cigar smoking American merchants, horseback riding men and women, (drunken) sailors, women in elaborate dresses and children, pool-playing, a photographer, and the big foreign ships. The work was issued in two parts, volume 1-3 in 1862, and volumes 4-6 in 1865, but they are hardly ever found complete with all six volumes together. Sadahide was selected in 1866 as one of the artists to represent Japan in the International Exhibition to be held in Paris in 1867, for which he received the French Legion d’Honneur. 66 A Japanese lacquered leather telescope Edo period, late 18th century

67 A Japanese octagonal blue and white Arita porcelain ‘Frijtom’ bowl with a harbour scene Arita, early 18th century

H. 11 x Diam. 23 cm Diam. footring 10.3 cm

The bowl is decorated in underglaze blue on the outside with a coastal scene showing a rocky shore, a city wall and houses, on the water two tall European ships and boats with seamen. Round the foot a narrow border with half-leaves and flower heads, inside in the centre a roundel showing two ships, one firing a cannon, and a boat surrounded by an octagonal border with leaves and flowers. The rim inside with a double decorative border and on the eight In four sections, the smallest innermost end fitted with a black lacquer corners a leaf. On the bottom a six-character Chenghua mark. The scene wooden disk with a hole in the middle to look through, both ends finished on the outside is of outstanding quality and relates to decoration on Dutch with copper bands and one end with a copper cap. All four sections made of Delftware in the style of the famous Delft potter Frederik van Frijtom (1632- lacquered leather impressed and applied with gold on a black ground with 1702). bands of European style floral and geometric patterns. Identical bowls are in the Groninger Museum, the Burghley House Collection, and in the Kyushu Ceramic Museum. L. 37 cm (when retracted) / L. 87 cm (when fully extended)

In 1613 the Shogun Tokagawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) received a telescope as a gift from King James I (1566-1625). He made good use of his telescope during his battles, and therefore Shogun’s and many Samurai asked the VOC, the Dutch East India Company based on the small island of Deshima in the bay of Nagasaki, for telescopes as a tribute. At the end of the 17th century making of telescopes had started in Japan, mainly in Nagasaki. The best-known opticians during the Edo period were Mori Nizaemon (1673-1754) of Nagasaki and Iwahashi Zenbei (1756-1811) of Osaka. In the 18th century Japanese watercolours and woodblock prints, Dutchmen are often depicted looking through a telescope. For a similar leather telescope see Uit Verre Streken, October 2016, no. 61, and for two glass tube telescopes see Uit Verre Streken, March 2015, no. 59 and 60. 68 shinsho, 5 vols., 1774) which, according to some, marks the beginning of A Manuscript of a moxibustion instruction, Jinjyu-Chojyu-Kyu, as a Divine Dutch Studies, Rangaku. Many years later, Sugita would also publish the Charm for Longevity, with depiction in colour of three Dutchmen, the equally important Beginnings of Dutch Studies (Rangaku kotohajime, 1815). Dutch delegation to the Shogun in 1767 Kastens, born in The Hague and in the service of the VOC from 1758, served on Deshima as second in rank in 1762/63 and as storehouse master Signed and dated: Respectfully recorded at Takasaki by the 81-year old Urano in 1763/64, to be appointed Opperhoofd in 1766. He is believed to have Higashie, in the third month of the twelfth year of Kansei (i.e. 1800), year of provided the sundial in the centre of the vegetable and herb garden at the monkey with seal (Higashie Kansei 12nen kanoe saru sangatsu shirushi Deshima, that is marked “HCK.” In 1769 he was appointed Opperhoofd for a Takasaki hachijũichi-õ Rrano Higashie kinroku) second time but went missing on his journey to Deshima. When the surgeon François de Haut accompanied Opperhoofd Jan Crans, Ink and pigments on paper, one sheet Kastens’s successor, on the next court journey, from February 3rd to June 9th, H. 56.8 x W. 72.5 cm 1768, he didn’t feel well during most of the journey, and eventually died on May 17th at Kusatsu on the return journey. The three figures to the right are, from left to right are: Opperhoofd Herman As for Urano Higashie from Takasaki, who signed this manuscript, no further Christiaan Kastens (kapitan Heruman Kasutensu, Opperhoofd at Deshima in information could be found. Takasaki is a town in Kõzuke Province, present- 1766-1767, and again 1769), the bookkeeper Willem Juris (yakunin Ueruremu day Gunma Prefecture. Yũrisu, dispatched at Deshima i 1766-1767), and the senior surgeon Jan François de Haut (Yan Furansu de Hõto, from Arlon, serving in Deshima in We are grateful to Prof. Matthi Forrer for his assistance in writing this catalogue entry 1766-1769, and making the court journey twice, in 1767 and 1768). The text above the figures asserts that “This moxa practice was in ancient times transmitted by the founder of a Zen sect who went to China, upon his return from abroad.” And further down “Being myself accustomed in that the way of healing and to help people that suffer from an illness is a doctrine of sacred wisdom, I publish this so-called teaching just to propagate it among those who have no trust or interest.” The left half of the document explains some principles of moxa and how this is applied differently for men and women. Moxa or moxibustion is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy which consists of burning dried mugwort on particular points of the body. It is difficult to say whether it were Kastens and De Haut who showed some interest in moxa during their stay in Edo where they would be visited by numerous Japanese scientists. If so, this might have been inspired by what Engelbert Kaempfer, surgeon at Deshima in the years 1690-1692 (see Uit Verre Streken, March 2020, no. 46) writes in his “Verhaal van de Moxa, een uytmuntend brandmiddel der Chineesen en Japoneesen, benevens eene schets, aantoonende welke gedeeltens van het menschelyk lichaam met deze plant in verscheide ziektens moeten worden gebrandt” (De Beschryving van Japan, Amsterdam, Jan Roman de Jonge, 1733 pp. 463-472). On the occasion of the 1767 court journey from Nagasaki to Edo, where they arrived on 27 March, Kastens and his party had a meeting with, among others, the medical doctor Sugita Genpaku (1733-1817). Sugita is probably best-known as the one who would, in 1771, with some colleagues, such as Maeno Ryõtaku (1723-1803) and Nakagawa Junan (1739-1786), assist in one of the earliest anatomical dissections of a human corpse, to find that anatomy as it was explained in many Western books was correct. As a result of this exercise, they published the epoch-making New Book of Anatomy (Kaitai

69 70 An ivory netsuke of Dutchman with hare by Tokisada Nakamura Masatoshi An ivory netsuke of a seated (1915-2001) Dutchman examining his bald pate Tokyo, circa 1960-1980, signed Masatoshi in a mirror Circa 1880, with apocryphal H. 7.8 cm signature of Minkoku

The jolly Dutchman carries a large hare slung over his back and tied to the H. 3.2 cm double-barrel of his riffle; the bullet hole is visible on the top of the poor hare’s head. The Dutchman’s pupils are inlaid in dark horn, as are the buttons of his coat. The hem of the coat shows finely engraved turbulent waves which appear to cause the front hem to flap open. The hare’s fur is finely engraved, the expression is somewhat peaceful as the front paws exhibit rigor mortis. The Dutchman, wearing Western attire and with curly hair, inspects himself The Dutchman stands proudly and is wearing an allonge wig, with finely in the mirror which is resting on his knee with his jolly mirror-image visible. carved curly hair beneath a broadly brimmed hat. The resemblance with imagery of Narcissus is uncanny, and the carver This netsuke is executed after a design by Masanao of Kyoto, currently literally holds a mirror in front of our face. residing in the collection of Dr. Joseph Kurstin, Miami. Masatoshi is a 20th century carver, carving in a wide variety of materials from wood to horn and ivory. He was patronised by the American collector and writer Raymond Bushell. In Bushell’s book The Art of Netsuke Carving (1981) 71 Masatoshi states that he never carved an animal before 1960 (p. 62). A stag-antler netsuke of a Dutchman by Michael Henry Birch (1926-2008) Provenance: Collection June Schuerch, Santa Barbara CA, purchased from Sidney Circa 1996, signed with initials Moss Ltd. in November 2013 H. 10 cm

Carved from a fine piece of highland stag antler, the wide-brimmed hat made of Molokai Taxis deer antler. The Dutchman’s coat terminates in elegant curls near his waist and the three buttons are inlaid in dark horn. His eyes are inlaid with drawn crystal rods. Standing on his toes and tights close together, he looks rather discomfited. Dutchmen are certainly one of Michael Birch most popular subjects and he was acknowledged for his ability to create character in a face, less than one centimetre in height.

Provenance: Collection Jonathan Birch, son of Michael Henry Birch 72 73 A stag-antler netsuke of a A Japanese fully articulated ivory okimono of a dragonfish crouching Dutchman, by Michael Meiji-period, 19th century Henry Birch (1926-2008) Signed and dated 1994 L. 30 cm

H. approx. 5 cm

The crouching Dutchman is carved from a superb piece of stag antler near the corona. It looks as if the Dutchman is inspecting something at a low level in front of him, but as JKL Birch (The Art & Life of Michael Birch, 2013, p.88) 74 notes, knowing Michael Birch’s sense of humour, the Dutchman is probably A Japanese fully articulated ivory okimono of a crab by Dai Kyoun just flashing his behind. Meiji-period, 19th century, signed Dai KYOUN underneath in a red- The porous sections of the antler are filled with clear lacquer, giving the lacquered rectangular cartouche surface a unique glossy feel, the clasp is inlaid in pink coral and the blue eyes in a drawn crystal rod. L. 16 cm

In 2018, to commemorate 150 years of Meiji period, Literature: Besides in the several exhibitions, focusing on the skilfull aforementioned book by JKL art of Meiji craftsmen, were held in the Birch, also in David Burditt, Kyoto National Museum (March 2018), Michael Birch, International the Kyoto Sannen Zaka Museum Netsuke’s Society Journal, (Febuary 2018) and in the Osaka Volume 16, no. 2, Summer 1996, Abenoharukasu Museum (Febuary p. 40, fig. 11. 2018). In these exhibitions also Exhibited: Sotheby’s Bond Street sculptures signed by Yamazaki London, 1994 and The Carvings of Nankai and Dai Kyoun Michael Birch, N.K.C., New York, were shown. However, no 19 97. further information on these two artists is available. 75 An extremely fine Japanese fully articulated ivory okimono of a spiny lobster, ebi, by Yamazaki Nankai Meiji-period, 19th century, signed Nankai in red underneath

L. 55.5 cm

The highly naturalistic carved lobster has long spiny antennae, ten legs, mandibles, a segmented body and a fan shaped tail. Even when touching the okimono, the sound it makes resembles the crawling of the lobster on the seabed. Every single joint is moveable and attached by a tiny ivory pin, which shows the absolute craftsmanship of the maker. 76 A fantastic Japanese fully articulated ivory and bone okimono of a dragon Meiji period, 19th century

L. 83.5 cm

The fully articulated body consists of over one hundred movable segments. The body of the dragon (tatsu) is elongated and slender with many scales and sharp dorsal spikes. The four limbs have ivory flames emanating from them and the head is expressive, with sharp horns, glaring eyes of mother- of-pearl and an open mouth with a movable tongue. 77 A Japanese Arita blue and white porcelain Ko-imari, map dish Arita, Edo period, circa 1840

Diam. 23.7 cm

Map dishes’, as they are commonly referred to for their illustrations of different maps, can be categorised into three types: Gennai ware, Kutani ware and Arita ware. This map dish is a unique example of an early Arita ware map dish. The rim is shaped to resemble undulating waves and the image is hand painted in gosu cobalt. The map shows Kyushu 78 island with the names of its A Japanese Arita blue and white porcelain VOC dish governmental provinces and a three- Arita, late 17th century masted Dutch ship giving a gun-salute, as was practised by the Dutch when entering the harbour of Nagasaki. Underneath Diam. 32.1 cm the plate is an inscription of a Chinese character reading as ‘inui’. The same character can be found under many Arita and Imari wares. These dishes, ordered by the VOC during the second half of the 17th century, In Nonomura Keiichi’s book Oranda-e imari, this type of dish is considered were copied after the popular Chinese Wanli ‘Kraak’ porcelain. With the war to be one of the oldest examples of map dishes, and Professor Obashi Kõji, in China between the Ming and Qing, starting in 1644, the source of supply former Director of the Kyushu Ceramic Museum dates this type of dish to of porcelain from China came to a sudden end, and the Dutch turned to Japan around 1840. for porcelain in the ‘Kraak’ style. This style is characterised by a central floral In the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam is a map dish of all of Japan and bird motif, surrounded by a radiating segmented border with alternating with the names of its provinces (inv. NG 1979-19), dated Tempó period panels of pomegranates and bamboo. In Arita the VOC ordered these plates (1830-1849). This period was characterized by internal and external political with the monogram added, to be used by the company staff in the East and tensions. The Dutch still were the only Westerners having relations with also as diplomatic gifts. After peace was restored in China and the Qing- Japan, but not for much longer. After 1854, under foreign pressure, Japan dynasty firmly established in circa 1700, porcelain was ordered from China concluded treaties with the USA, England, Russia, France and the Netherlands again, for Japanese porcelain was too expensive. to open up several of its harbours for foreign trade. published by Guus Röell and Dickie Zebregs December 2020

Maastricht 6211 LN, Tongersestraat 2 [email protected] tel. +31 653211649 (by appointment only)

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Cover Masulipatam box no. 20

Title page Tiger head no. 22

This page Reinier Nooms no. 2

More images and further readings can be found at www.zebregsroell.com. This catalogue and previous ones can be viewed at www.guusroell.com.

Photography Michiel Stokmans

Design A10design

Printed by Pietermans Drukkerij, Lanaken, Belgium